Elisabeth Elliot: We're always making preparations for something, aren't we--for life, for marriage, for parenthood, for work, for old age, for death. And I would hope for those of us who are serious-minded, for judgment.

Lisa Barry: I can remember one year as a teenager when I was so looking forward to Christmas. It came and went, and I felt so empty afterward. How could something I was so looking forward to be over in an instant? While planning for my wedding, I got a little wiser and realized that it was the preparation itself that was the real joy of the celebration. The excitement was in the anticipation. Thinking that way made the wedding seem six months longer rather than four hours out of one day. Today Elisabeth Elliot will talk again about Advent and how God prepares us for the many twists and turns our lives are to take. It's easy to look back and see the hand of God in our lives, but can we have the same assurance looking forward? We'll find out today on Gateway To Joy.

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 with you again today about Advent. Yesterday I mentioned that the word "advent" is from two Latin words which simply mean "coming to," and that is the name that Christians have always given to this season, referring to three different advents--the coming of Jesus into the world as a baby, the coming of Jesus again as He Himself promised that He would do, and His quiet, individual coming to each one of us who is prepared to receive Him.

And I want us to particularly be preparing ourselves for the Christmas season. Not primarily in terms of shopping and cooking, but reminding us in terms of recognition of who it is that we receive and who it is that is reminding us in this season of His coming. We are always making preparation for something, aren't we? For life, for marriage, for parenthood, for work, for old age, for death, and (I would hope for those of you who are serious-minded) for judgment. Life is preparation. And God prepared the whole world.

He prepared the history of the world for what the Scriptures call the "fullness of time." In the fullness of time, God prepared a virgin. He prepared Joseph, the man who was engaged to that virgin whose name was Mary and who was going to be charged with the responsibility of fathering the Virgin Mary's baby, who was the Son of man. God prepared the world by the timing of the census. Jesus prepared for His own ministry. Jesus had to be taken into the wilderness. God was preparing Him for His public ministry then. And just before Jesus chose the 12 apostles, do you remember how He prepared? He went up into the mountains to pray alone. He spent the whole night in prayer before He made the choice of His apostles. He prepared the Church for the coming of the Holy Spirit, which we read about in the Book of Acts.

My own spiritual journal--which I have been keeping for pretty close to 50 years--is an amazing revelation to me of the ways in which God has prepared me for things which I never dreamed of, things which I didn't even notice at the time as being preparation for anything. I can look back in those journals and see the way in which the Lord has led me. And that is one of the strong reasons, if I may put in a parenthesis here, why I strongly urge people to keep spiritual journals. Because most of us don't really have very good memories, and it is not only a question of memory. It is a question of perspective. There are so many things that I can find in my journal that were obviously the providence of God. It is only obvious to me now. It wasn't obvious at the time. But it is kind of thrilling to see "Oh, so this was what that was for. So this was the lesson that God was teaching in that event. " I never dreamed it. I never noticed it.

When I think of the tremendous privilege--for example--of this program, Gateway To Joy, it really does kind of scare me. It would scare me almost to paralysis if I didn't remember that, of course, I had nothing to do with it. I had absolutely nothing to do with Gateway To Joy coming into being. God handed it to me, as it were, on a platter, and many other people have had a part in bringing this program into being. But it was over many, many years that God was preparing me for something that never once crossed my screen.

And I think of all you listeners out there. Some of whom write to me and just the letters that I get, which I'm sure don't represent a very large percentage of the listeners, but they are enough to overwhelm me and make me think, "What do I have to give to these people? What does any of us have, except what is given to us." As my husband Addison Leitch--he was my second husband, who died of cancer--as he used to say, "When a man starts believing his stress notices, he is in trouble."

Well, lest I should ever imagine that I have anything but what has been given me, I need to be reminded continually of Janet Erskine Stuart's books, one called Prayer in Faith. She has this poem which has come to mean a great deal to me just in this last year, since I first found it.

"We for whom in bitter hour Thy manhood wrestled unto death,
Have life drawn from Thy dying breath, And strength beyond our human power.
No bound is there to that deep life, No limit to that quenchless fire.
We draw Thy breath at Thy desire. We wield Thy strength in every strife.
And what we have, but that alone, that can we give. We draw from Thee,
That others may Thy likeness see to draw them nearer to Thy throne."

Sometimes I know it is hard to get the meaning of a poem when you just hear it once, but let me repeat that last stanza, because it says just what I want to say to you. As I often say to people, I don't have anything but what I have been given. This is the way Janet Erskine Stuart puts it: "And what we have, but that alone, that can we give. We draw from Thee, that others may Thy likeness see to draw them nearer to Thy throne." And so it is always my prayer, and I would ask you who pray for me to pray the same thing, that I may; continually draw from Christ myself, so that others may see His likeness, and they may then be drawn nearer to the throne.

The purpose of my life is to love God and to make Him loved, and to lay down my life to that end. So these things about advent that I have been taught myself by many ancient writers, they are not new. They are not my own. They are not original. Just the old, eternal Word--alive, powerful, relevant today.

Now how do we prepare for His coming? We should be spiritually attentive, awake, watching for Him, listening to Him, expectant. Sometimes we are not expecting from God, are we, because we think that God is paying no attention to us. Am I talking to some today who are despairing, sure that God has forgotten them, or maybe that God doesn't exist at all? Certain that because you have lived such a bad life, or such an indifferent life that you have no right to expect anything from God? Well, you know, you are just exactly the kind of person that God wants to get the attention of. He's plucking at your sleeve, saying, "Watch for Me. Listen for Me. I love you. I love you with an everlasting love. Don't you want to expect something from Me? I want to do something for you."

How often do you go to prayer really not expecting God to do a thing? Just a couple of weeks ago, I got a letter--one of the most depressing, discouraging letters I have ever had from a radio listener. When I got finished reading her six or eight pages, I thought to myself that here is a hopeless case if I have ever seen one. Husband and wife, both of them hopeless. It was a letter from the wife telling about a miserable marriage. And as I read her account of all her husband's faults, I thought to myself that there is a lot of bitterness in this woman, a lot of unwillingness to love and to lay down her life.

And you know what? That woman herself eventually called the station, sometime after she had written that letter. And when I heard how God had actually been working in their lives--undoubtedly partly because of the prayers of the people who open mail at Lincoln, Nebraska, and actually do pray about the things that you ask them to pray for--I thought to myself, "Lord, forgive my unbelief." I really was not expecting that anything very much could happen in that woman's life.

We say that God hears and answers prayer, but maybe He doesn't hear mine. I will never get an answer. We read in Habakkuk 2:1-3, "I will stand at my post, I will take up my position on the watchtower, I will watch to learn what he will say through me, and what I shall reply when I am challenged." I am suggesting that in this Advent time, that we take up our stand, that we watch to learn what He will say to us. And I do believe that God wants to speak to you if you will wait for Him, listen to Him, be silent before Him, and receive the coming of the Advent of our Lord Jesus at this Christmas time.

Lisa Barry: If you'd like to help a young mother stay focused on the real meaning of Christmas, here's a great offer to take advantage of. It's a collection of books, tapes and readings that are designed to give her the tools she needs to help her family discover the significance of Christmas. You'll find the books, Christ in Christmas: A Family Advent and Christmas Stories for the Heart. You'll also receive a three-week tape series chalked full of Christmas stories plus a series entitled "A Simple Christmas" and a leaflet called "The Wondrous Gift." All this is yours for $30, including shipping and handling! Just ask for the Christmas gift packet. You can send that amount, along with your request to:

Gateway to Joy, Box 82500, Lincoln, Nebraska, 68501. That's Gateway to Joy, Box 82500, Lincoln, Nebraska, 68501. Or you can call toll free 1-800-759-4JOY. That's 1-800-759-4569. Or on the Internet, dial gatewaytojoy.org.

Tomorrow Elisabeth talks about Advent and having anxiety about the future. Tune in for her solution next time on Gateway To Joy.