Lisa Barry: There aren't very many of us who would want to hear about the sovereignty of God from someone who hasn't suffered. They just haven't earned their stripes, so to speak. But Elisabeth Elliot is a woman who has known disappointment in many forms. It's not to say that hers was the worst, but most of us haven't walked through valleys quite as dark. Today she'll offer an overview of those experiences and tell us why she never stopped believing that God was in complete control. You'll find courage for yourself as you listen today. It's all coming up on this Thursday edition of 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, continuing to talk today about "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands."

Do you sometimes feel discouraged? "Why should I feel discouraged? Why should the shadows come? Why should my heart feel lonely and long for heaven and home? If Jesus is my portion, my constant Friend is He, and His eye is on the sparrow and I know He watches me."

Does God care about the tiny sparrow that falls from the nest, perhaps to be devoured by a cat? Does God care about the food for the mother sparrow, who is working very hard to feed her babies? If God's eye is on the sparrow, I know He watches you and He watches me. He loves us with an everlasting love. That's what the Bible says. "And underneath are the everlasting arms."

Has God really got everything under control? Aren't there some things that He just doesn't bother with or maybe-awful thought-really can't handle? I find His sovereign and mysterious will, His action in the world, to be a great source of confidence and peace, because I know that I am not at the mercy of chance. I'm not just floating in a black void. I am held in the everlasting arms.

The sacramental understanding of life helps us to accept humbly God's grace through the medium of things and happenings. The sacramental understanding, which means the recognition of invisible realities through the visible realities. Look out at the ocean, for example. A visible reality. But what hand formed those rocks, that sandy beach, those waves, the creatures that live in that vast ocean? They are visible realities, aren't they? But there certainly has to be an invisible reality behind them.

Yesterday I told you some of my sorrows and troubles when I was a child in the Great Depression, having few friends, being afraid and shy and ill and convinced that I was going to flunk everything. I lost my dear friend Essie when we were both nine years old. I was too tall when I was in the eighth grade. I didn't know how to play softball when everybody else did. I got a terrible Valentine in sixth grade that almost demolished me. And I got some severe scoldings from the headmistress of the school that I went to in Florida. But that same headmistress introduced me to the works of Amy Carmichael.

Well, now I want to tell you a little bit about my parents. My father was a tall, shy man. He had lost an eye when he was 12 years old through disobedience. His father had told him that he must not have fireworks for Fourth of July. My father had wanted fireworks as long as he could remember. When he was 12 years old, he just determined that he was going to have some anyway. He got up early in the morning, sneaked over to a farm and set alight some dynamite caps. A piece of copper went into his left eye, and the eye had to be removed. So I grew up with a one-eyed father.

Of course, he had a wonderful glass eye that he could take out at night and put in the little box. I was also excited to be able to take my friends in to show them my Daddy's glass eye. But I think it had probably quite a bit to do with the fact that he was a truly humble man. He realized that it was through his own disobedience that he had that permanent handicap. He was sure that nobody would ever want to marry him.

My mother was a very beautiful girl. When he first saw her, he said to himself, "That's the kind of a girl I'd like to marry, but she would never want a one-eyed man." I was blessed in having godly, humble, genuine, real parents, mother and father. They taught us self-discipline. They taught us godliness. They had very high expectations for us. I don't remember their ever saying, "You must get all A's in school," but they certainly encouraged us to be very faithful in our homework, to pay attention to the teacher, to sit quietly in school, to do what we were told. Generally speaking, I think we did bring home acceptable report cards.

There was order in our home. Even though there were six children, it was not chaos. We learned to be quiet, to go up and down stairs on tiptoe, because either Mother might be taking a nap in the afternoon or there was a young baby who was perhaps asleep. "Think about other people," we were told. We had a family expression, "G.M.T.," which meant "Good missionary training." So if any one of us complained about anything, the rest of us were likely to say, "G.M.T.," and maybe give the other person a little punch on the shoulder, just by way of reminder that this would be good missionary training.

A lot was taken for granted, just because we saw the example of our parents. They didn't have to verbalize it. What they were spoke loudly to us about what they wanted us to be.

I had the privilege of going to Wheaton College in Illinois. One of the great blessings was to be in the dormitory of which Miss Catherine Cumming was the dorm mother. Another one of the influences in my life.

Then of course I met my first husband, Jim Elliot, there. One of my closest friends for life was Eleanor Vandervort. Some months ago I read some of her letters, written to me from the Sudan in East Africa, where she was a missionary. Many blessings that came through God's sovereign work, God's wonderful planning for me.

I think back to the tests of faith and to my call to the mission field. This is all part of my personal history, of course. Each one of you, if you stop to think about it, could probably find many, many examples of things which happened, which perhaps at the time seemed maybe even disastrous or perhaps meaningless. Yet you can look back now and see the amazing ways in which God has worked His sovereign will, in spite of everything else.

If I had not gone to Wheaton College, I would not have met Miss Cumming. I would not have met Eleanor Vandervort. I would not have met Jim Elliot. When I did meet him, I thought, "Well, he is just my little brother's friend." My brother Dave is thirteen months younger than I. "Why should I be interested in my brother Dave's friends?"

Then I began to watch Jim Elliot on the campus and began to see some of the differences in his life. There were things which I couldn't have known without my brother telling me, one of which was that Jim got up at 5:00 in the morning in order to spend time alone with God. It's by saturating ourselves in the Scriptures that we begin gradually to see, to understand that God has got the whole world in His hands.

Read the Book of Psalms. Over and over again it speaks of His sovereign will and His sovereign work in the world.

Those simple words in the first chapter of Genesis, "And He made the stars"-could anything be more exquisite an understatement? "And He made the stars." Think of it. Even one star-imagine making it! We look up at the velvet black at night and we see those pinpoints of stars. We can't begin to take in the size, the distance, the light, the mind and the hand behind the creation of those stars.

But oh, if only we could see that we don't have anything to worry about. The Bible says, "Don't worry about anything whatever." Well, how can we not worry? Stop and think. He has got the whole world in His hands. This hasn't happened for nothing. God knows what He is doing.

I had a good many tests of faith when I knew that I wanted to be a missionary all my life. I had prayed and aimed for missionary work. It wasn't until the end of my junior year in college that I realized, "I haven't really gotten down to business with God to find out if this is His idea or mine." I had planned out my life so neatly.

Then I thought, "Well, Lord, maybe You have something other than that. Maybe I need to get down to business and find out if this is my idea or Yours." So I did. I began to pray during that summer between my junior and senior years in college. "Lord, was it You who spoke to me about being a missionary or is it just my own whim? I want to do Your will."

I had copied into my Bible the prayer of Betty Scott Stamm. "Lord, I give up all my own plans and purposes, all my own desires and hopes and accept Thy will for my life. I give myself, my life, my all utterly to Thee to be Thine forever. Fill me and seal me with Thy Holy Spirit. Use me as Thou wilt. Work out Thy whole will in my life at any cost, now and forever."

He's got the whole world in His hands. Do you feel as though you're being tossed to and fro, not knowing where to go or what to do? Just turn to Christ. He is waiting to hear your prayer and to show you the next step. God bless you.

Lisa Barry: I'm sure many of you will want to get a tape of this series, because it's been so practical. We're all tempted to doubt from time to time. How comforting to know that certainty could be as close as a tape recorder away. The title to ask for is "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands." The cost is $7.

You can send that, along with your request, to Gateway To Joy, Box 82500, Lincoln, Nebraska, 68501. Or you can call us toll-free: 1-800-759-4JOY. That's 1-800-759-4569. Our Internet ministry address is gatewaytojoy.org. Gateway To Joy has been a production of Back to the Bible.

Elisabeth closes this week of talks tomorrow with a few letters from people who are realizing one episode after another that God does indeed have the whole world in His hands. That's next time on Gateway To Joy.