Lisa Barry: If you're like most people, it's hard to watch others doing things wrong and not try to correct them, especially if it's a family member or friend. After all, we have the insight that everyone else is lacking. Right? Well, even in our own lives it's easy to assume that God is a little less experienced at handling our destiny than we are. Stay tuned as Elisabeth Elliot challenges us to alter that assumption next on Gateway To Joy.

Elisabeth Elliot: In the Book of Micah, there's a very interesting verse that says, "A son dishonors his father, a daughter rises up against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, a man's enemies are the members of his own household. But [the prophet says] as for me, I watch in hope for the LORD; I wait for God my Savior."

I don't know of any more painful experience than to find yourself at odds with a family member. And I would suppose that all of us in some measure have experienced this. You find that there's been some major misunderstanding. Perhaps someone has chosen a path of disobedience and you have, in an attempt to be a faithful sister or daughter or friend, tried to warn that person, and that person has turned in anger and fury against you, and the whole relationship has disintegrated.

My dear friend Arlita Winston told a story of how her own daughter-in-law had turned against her for a period. And that was a great agony because when the baby was born, the grandmother was not permitted to see the baby for quite a while. But that whole situation has been totally transformed through waiting on God.

You know, we want to weigh in with all sorts of methods and arguments, and we think, "This is the thing I've got to do now. I must confront." Well, there may be a time for confrontation. There may be a time for sitting down and discussing the thing after the relationship has fallen completely apart.

But the most important thing, and this is what I'm always trying to emphasize, is to wait first on God. Don't get on the telephone and call up your closest friends, 39 of them, and tell them how awful everything is. Don't immediately book yourself into a counseling center. I'm not knocking counseling centers. I'm simply saying, "What is your priority?"

Who really knows the answer? You know that God does. We need to discipline ourselves, relinquish this urge to solve the problem, to straighten people out. And if ever there is severe temptation in my nature, it is to straighten people out. Well, I can't do it, can I? And all I'm going to do is tangle them up more if I have not learned first to wait on God.

Now I happen to be a mother and a mother-in-law and a grandmother. And I have only one child, but she is, of course, very precious to me, and her children are very, very precious to me. And I have all kinds of ideas of what I think that family needs. And every time I go there, I'm given the opportunity to learn this lesson of relinquishment. Relinquish the urge to say anything about some of the things that I want to say things about. Shut up, in other words. Keep your mouth shut. That is a major relinquishment for most of us women. What about you men? Do you ever have that problem? No, I didn't think so. Well, you know, we all know what it's like to put our foot in our mouths.

One of the tests along this line came when Valerie and her husband came into my bedroom--I was staying with them--came into the guest room at about 5:00 in the morning with their very happy piece of news that number five was on the way. Now they had two boys and two girls. In my mind, that was a perfect family. And that's all anybody needs.

Well, I didn't say it, thank God, I did manage to keep my mouth shut that time. But the urge to control other people--I was so upset about that, not primarily because I thought they ought to stop with four but because I thought this was a bit too soon after number four had come. But I began to think, "What business is it of mine?" You know, it is absolutely none of my business.

I wanted to tell my son-in-law to sleep in the backyard for a while. I mean, I really, I can't tell you all the wicked thoughts that went through my mind and all the things that I thought I could say. And I had to get down on my knees and just relinquish all those urges to God and say, "Lord, these are Your children. Valerie and Walter are Your children. And there are four children. And this tiny one without a name is Yours. And Lord, work out Your will in their lives. And help me to be a pray-er as a grandmother."

That is my primary responsibility. We grandparents, you know, it's not our job to straighten out our children or our grandchildren. It is our job to be faithful in praying for them and to lift them up into the presence of God daily.

The last time I visited my grandchildren, my 15-year-old grandson needed a haircut, in my opinion. I said nothing, but I prayed that the Lord would do something about it. And lo and behold, his swim coach told him he had to have a haircut. You never know what God is going to do in answer to your prayers.

Lars and I have very different ideas about how to keep, shall we say, my study and his office. We have two little rooms upstairs, and he calls his an office because that's the kind of work that gets done there, and I call mine a study because that's the kind of work that gets done there. And there are times when I just would give anything in the world to go in there and just rearrange everything. I don't like the way Lars arranges things. And I have to confess that I tried that a few times way back early in our marriage.

My urge to control others has got to go. And as maybe you've heard Ruth Graham say, "You pray about everything and you leave the impossible with God." And we cannot change other people, let's face it. We cannot control other people. And the attempt to control other people is invariably damaging.

Is this my business? That's the question. Is it my business? No. It is God's business. Leave it to Him. God says, "I'll take care of it." Keep your mouth shut. Remember that God's timing is always right. I must wait on God's timing. And being silent and backing off and shutting up are disciplines. They're disciplines for every one of us. They are forms of chastening.

The Bible tells us that our Heavenly Father chastens us in order that we may share His holiness. We need to be chastened in order to share His holiness. I think we women, ever since the Garden of Eden, are manipulators. We have very subtle ways of doing things. Did I hear a man say amen?

Well, Eve was a manipulator, wasn't she? And she had her own agenda. And she set about moving in the direction of fulfilling what she thought needed to be fulfilled. And what happened to Adam? He just wimped out. He said, "This is what the little lady wants, then this is what we'll do." So we are manipulators, we women, and you men have abdicated responsibility of what masculinity is all about.

Well, we won't spend any more time on that one, but just a word. I trust it's a word in season. And for both those faults, we need the Lord's chastening. And we need to relinquish our desire to be laid-back if we happen to be a man, and God has assigned to you the position of headship.

I don't meet very many men who really want to be the head of the house in the sense that the Bible requires, the spiritual head, the one who is to husband and protect and provide for and be responsible for everything that happens in that house, the one at whose desk the buck stops. Not too many men jump at that opportunity. They would much rather turn over and go to sleep, turn on the TV, be away for the weekend, instead of having to face up to responsibilities that always require sacrifice.

And the responsibilities of both husbands and wives require sacrifice-relinquishing our time, relinquishing our ideas, relinquishing our urge to control other people. So we need the Lord's chastening. Yes, we do. We need it. And the contexts in which we are to learn these lessons are chosen by God.

Never imagine that you would be a saint if you were put in different circumstances. Your own condition, your job, your home, your family, your relationships, your church, your difficulties, your limitations, your handicaps--every one of them is exactly designed by the One who made us, for our learning sainthood, our learning holiness and being conformed into the image of His Son.

Now did I make this up? No, I got it out of Romans 8:28 and 29, which says, "Everything that happens fits into a pattern for good.." Everything. "To them that love God, to those who are called according to His purpose."

So often we skip the purpose, which is defined in Romans 8:29, and the purpose is that we should "be conformed to the image of His Son."

Lisa Barry: I enjoyed Elisabeth's story about Valerie's fifth baby announcement. I can relate to that, too, in my own family. If I spent half as much time critiquing myself as I do my family, I'd be a lot better off. We think we know best. After all, the only thing we're able to see crystal clear is our own perspective. That's why when it comes to our Christian faith that faith is so important. S. D. Gordon once said, "And trust means trust in the darkest dark where you cannot see."

If this series has been helpful to you, I'd really encourage you to purchase a copy for yourself. The cost is $13, and that includes all ten talks from this week and next week. Here's the address to write to: Gateway To Joy, Box 82500, Lincoln, Nebraska, 68501. Or call 1-800-759-4JOY. That's 1-800-759-4569. Gateway To Joy has been a production of Back to the Bible.

Be with us on Monday when Elisabeth continues this powerful series on WAITING ON GOD. Until then, this is Lisa Barry, thanking you for listening. Have a great weekend.