Elisabeth Elliot: Are you filled with anxiety today? Do you want to lug it around all day or all night? There is another way, you know. You can just cast your anxiety on Him.

Lisa Barry: We all know the verse that says, "Cast all your anxiety on Him, for He cares for you." We've got it memorized. We quote it to our friends. We write it in sympathy cards. But do we really do it? When the worries of life steal our joy and fill up the dark places of our minds, do we cast them upon Christ? Today on Gateway To Joy, Elisabeth Elliot wants to remind us that God wants us to turn to Him with our trials. If you're not quite sure how to do that, you've come to the right place. This is Lisa Barry, inviting you to stay with us for this Tuesday edition of Gateway To Joy. Here's Elisabeth.

Elisabeth Elliot: "You are loved with an everlasting love." That?s what the Bible says. "And underneath are the everlasting arms." This is your friend Elisabeth Elliot, talking today about an antidote for anxiety. An antidote for anxiety.

I had a beautiful letter, which I read yesterday. Let me read a little bit more from that. A lady named Anita. She said, "I found myself looking into the same mirror of conviction over my own shortcomings and my own arrogance. You have a forthright way of telling the truth of God's Word. I believe that absolute truth is for absolute obedience." I hope you can remember that phrase that she had in her letter. Absolute truth is for absolute obedience.

That reminds me of my parents. I am very blessed in having grown up in a godly home, where there was discipline, love, lots of fun and laughter, and of course some spankings and some tears. But there was no question in our minds that what our parents meant, they meant the first time. Whatever they said, they meant the first time. Absolute truth is for absolute obedience. In our home, delayed obedience was treated like disobedience. Are you "struggling" with some matter of obedience? My advice to you is just to quit struggling and do it. Just do it.

Here is a poem that someone sent me. "It is His will that I should cast my cares on Him each day. He also tells me not to cast my confidence away. But oh, how foolishly I act when taken unawares! I cast away my confidence and carry all my cares."

Does that make any sense? "Oh, how foolishly I act when taken unawares! I cast away my confidence and carry all my cares." Do not throw away your confidence. It will be richly rewarded.

In 1 Peter 5:7, "Cast all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you." Are you filled with anxiety today? Do you want to lug it around all day or all night? There is another way, you know. You can just cast your anxiety on Him.

"Yeah, but Elisabeth, how in the world do you do that? I really don't understand how in the world I'm supposed to cast my anxiety on God." Well, you can be sure that Elisabeth Elliot has been tested many, many times along these lines, because I'm normally?I was born as, shall we say, a worrywart. I know that I'm supposed to cast my anxiety on God.

But I hope that I'm learning, slowly but surely, that there is a refuge. All I need to do is get down on my knees and lay the whole thing that is troubling me right out before God. He knew about it before I got down on my knees, of course. He permitted it. I need to remember that. But He can handle it, and He tells us that we are to cast our anxiety on Him. Why? Because He cares for us.

He cares for you children that are listening. Some of you may have had a very tough day. Maybe you had to be spanked yesterday. Maybe you weren't allowed to go somewhere that you wanted to go. Well, be assured that your parents care for you, and that?s why they have to punish you. God cares for you, too. He loves you with an everlasting love.

But somebody says, "God doesn't answer my prayers." Oh, yes, He does. God always answers prayers, but very frequently His answer has to be no. No. Not because God hates you. Not because He has overlooked your need, but precisely because He knows your need. Your need, according to His definition, is very likely something quite different from your own. Can you trust Him?

You know the story about Amy Carmichael. When she was just a little girl, she was told when she was about three years old that God answers prayer. She believed them. So she got down on her knees before she went to bed. She prayed for the one thing in the world that she wanted more than anything else in the world. Some of you children who are listening to me, you already know what that was. Amy Carmichael, this little three-year-old, wanted blue eyes.

Well, she prayed for blue eyes. She jumped into bed, happy as a lark, knowing that the next morning she would jump out of bed and she would go over and look in the mirror and find her eyes had been turned from brown to blue. Well, she did jump out the next morning. She pushed a chair over to the place where she could look up in the mirror. Guess what she saw? Blue eyes? No. Exactly the same brown ones that she'd had the night before.

Did God not answer her prayer? She learned that sometimes the answer is no. No is an answer. Yes is an answer and no can also be an answer. You children know that your mother and your daddy, if they are faithful mothers and daddies, they have to say no to a lot of things that you wish they would say yes to.

Now be assured that the Lord has everything which concerns you well in hand. Take time to listen to Him. Pour out your heart before Him. Before Him?not before your closest friends. Arrange a quiet time. "Well, I don't see how you do that. I'm not a morning person," I hear somebody say.

Where did this "morning person" thing come from? I haven't been able to figure that out at all. It was never mentioned in the Bible, and I do believe that it is a matter of personal discipline. The Bible tells us that Jesus got up long before day and went off by Himself to commune with His Father. The psalmist said, "Early in the morning I will praise Thee." It is always possible to do the will of God. It is always possible to do the will of God. So you can eliminate whatever stands in the way. How important is it to you to be able to be obedient to God?

I have a letter here from a lady. She says, "I have a long drive to work each day. One morning four years ago I heard a woman on my radio talking about submission to your husband and raising children. I wondered, 'Who is this old-fashioned kook?' Curiosity got the better of me and I listened again the next day, and the next. I have been listening every morning since on the Mars Hill Network, although I live near Kingston, Ontario. I can still pick up the station. Elisabeth Elliot has taught me so many things. Her advice is always right." Oh, my. I hope that's true. I'm not sure my advice is always right, but I try.

"How could it be anything but, when it comes from God's Word? Since listening to Gateway To Joy, I have learned to trust and obey, do the next thing, keep a quiet heart and"?this one thrilled my soul?"learn the words to old hymns. Most importantly, I have learned the priceless value of daily quiet time with God." That is a tremendous antidote for anxiety.

Andrew Murray, a missionary in South Africa, wrote this. These are rules that he wrote for himself. "Number one, God brought me here. It is by His will that I am in this narrow place. In that fact, I will rest. Number two, He will keep me here in His love and gave me grace to behave as His child. Number three, He will make the trial a blessing, teaching me the lessons He intends for me to learn and working in me the grace He means to bestow. Number four, in His good time He can bring me out again. How and when He knows."

"Let me say I am here"?and then he has one, two, three, four?and these are short, so some of you who have pencil and paper handy, you can take these down. This is just a summary of what he said above.

"Let me say I am here, number one, by God's appointment (Psalm 16:5), number two, in His keeping, number three, under His training, and number four, for His time."

You know, I think that if you would make those rules for yourself, you could find your gateway to joy. You might even find yourself singing a song like "What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear. What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer." That is the antidote for anxiety?carry everything to God in prayer.

Just this morning my husband and I received a phone call at 6:00 to tell us that a dear friend of ours had just had a stroke. What do we do at a time like that? They are far away from us. We couldn't rush right to the hospital. What could we do? Take them to the Lord in prayer.

"Do thy friends despise, forsake thee? Take it to the Lord in prayer. In His arms He'll take and shield thee; thou wilt find a solace there."

I love Daniel's prayer in Daniel 9:18. "We do not make requests of You, Lord, because we are righteous, but because of Your great mercy." We do not make requests of You because we are righteous, but because of Your great mercy. That's Daniel 9:18?an antidote for anxiety.

Lisa Barry: I hope your burden has been lifted today as you've heeded Elisabeth's advice. So often the thing we need to do most is the one that escapes us. Since anxiety is an emotion that creeps up quite often in life, it makes sense to take offensive measures against it. The best way I can think of to do that is to purchase this weekly tape. The title to ask for is ANTIDOTE FOR ANXIETY.

The cost is $5. You can send that, along with your request, to Gateway To Joy, Box 82500, Lincoln, Nebraska, 68501. Or call toll-free: 1-800-759-4JOY. If you're on the Internet, be sure and check out our Web site. You can order books and tapes on line, peek ahead to upcoming program topics and much more. That address again is gatewaytojoy.org. Gateway To Joy is a listener-supported production of Back to the Bible.

Tomorrow Elisabeth talks more about how to carry everything to God in prayer. That's next time on Gateway To Joy.