Elisabeth Elliot: Incompatibility is not a reason for divorce. It?s a reason for marriage. We?re all incompatible.

Lisa Barry: Now isn?t that a statement you can take to the bank? I?ve also heard it said that if you and your spouse were exactly the same, then one of you wouldn?t be necessary. Elisabeth Elliot has a few words to say for people who think that they have the perfect reason for dissolving a marriage. Find out what you can do to save yours on this Wednesday edition of Gateway to Joy.

Elisabeth Elliot: When the disciples heard the call of Jesus, "Come and follow Me," we read that Matthew immediately left his tax collector?s booth. Several of the other disciples left their nets. The sons of Zebedee left Zebedee. They left their boats and their nets. We don?t read a word about how bad they felt about it. They just leaped up and followed Him and left everything behind, little imagining the cost of what that following was going to mean.

When Jesus comes to you and me and says, "Do you want to be My disciple?" He never gives us a blueprint of what?s going to be involved. He does not outline the whole will of God for our lives and say, "Do you like this? Will you take it?" He simply says, "Do you love Me? Will you trust Me? Well, then, be My disciple. That means giving up your right to yourself and taking up the cross and following Me."

The glorious sacrifice at the beginning looks great. I talk to many starry-eyed young people who would love to be missionaries. They?d love to work overseas. They?d love to do something really tough for God, and I certainly was one of those myself. I think back to all the missionary heroes that I had and the missionary books that I read.

One of the poems that I memorized somewhere or other along the way came to me when finally I really believed that God had called me to be a foreign missionary. It expressed exactly the way I felt.

"I heard Him call, ?Come follow,? that was all. My gold grew dim; my soul went after Him. Who would not follow if they heard Him call?"

You don?t know what the cost is going to be. Nobody could possibly be ready to accept previews of all the coming attractions involved in discipleship. Jesus said to His disciples, "I have many things to tell you, but you can?t bear them now."

A bridegroom might say that to a bride, to, mightn?t he? "I have many things to reveal to you about who I am, that in all these weeks or months or maybe years of acquaintance you don?t have a clue about." But of course, the bridegroom has very little clue about them himself, because marriage is a revelation as well as a revolution. We don?t really know ourselves until we are in an intimate relationship with another fallible human being.

One of the things that I reminded my daughter of in this little book that I mentioned, LET ME BE A WOMAN, was that she was going to be marrying a sinner. There isn?t anything else to marry. Don?t you forget that your husband or your wife is also married to a sinner. We do not know what is going to be in that prize package.

This same lady that told me about how much she loved dogs and said that the measure of your love is the measure in which you?re willing to be inconvenienced?she said to me one day, "You know, Betty dear, we?re none of us prize packages. Just look for the essentials and skip the rest."

I thought, "Well, that?s very good advice, very wise advice, especially after you get married." This prize package that you certainly thought you were getting, or you would never have married him or her, turns out to be a surprise package, doesn?t it? There are all kinds of things in there that you were not expecting.

Whenever you hear anybody explain why they got a divorce, it seems as though in every case they say, "Well, we?ve grown apart. She is not the woman I married. I?m not the woman who married him. He is not the man I married. We?ve changed so much."

Well, I want to say, "So what else is new? What did you think you were getting? If you?re marrying a real live human being, there will be many changes and there are going to be many revelations and there are going to be many revolutions in your life, if you?re going to make it work out."

We can?t know the cost in advance. We are all, let?s face it, incompatible. I think it was here in Wisconsin that I heard Jill Briscoe talk many years ago to a large audience. She said, "I?m going to let you in on a secret. Did you know that Stuart and I are incompatible? We live with an incompatible"?I?ve forgotten how many children she has?"an incompatible son, an incompatible daughter, an incompatible daughter and an incompatible cat. It takes a whole lot of the grace of God for us to get along for even one day at a time."

She said that sometimes when Stuart is away, she?ll get a phone call. The lady says she wants to talk to the pastor. Jill says, "Well, I?m sorry, but he?s out of town. Could I help you?" The lady is in tears and she says, "No. I need to talk to the pastor. It?s a very personal matter." Jill has, on a few occasions, had the temerity to say, "Well, I bet I know what your problem is. Incompatibility." The lady gasps and says, "Well, how did you know?"

She says, "Well, I just had a sneaking suspicion that that might be it, because every now and then I hear people talk about incompatibility. But you know, incompatibility is not a reason for divorce. It?s a reason for marriage. We?re all incompatible." I think that?s absolutely true.

I have had three husbands. I still have #3. He?s still sitting out there. He?s still feeling okay, as far as I know. We?re both hoping that there is no #4 waiting in the wings. But all of them were very different. I know that each of them had some of the same kinds of difficulties with me, but I had different kinds of difficulties with each of them. There was a sense in which I was incompatible with each of them.

Now don?t go out of here and say that I?ve had very bad marriages. They were wonderful marriages, both the first two and the present one. But I know myself to be a sinner. So where is this glory of sacrifice that we look at? We can?t know the costs in advance. We don?t see what the sacrifices are going to be. It turns out that we are incompatible. Yet we are building a home in love. We are building a new entity, a place, an arena where the mystery of Christ in the Church is to be enacted.

I like to think of the Christian home as a theater in which this tremendous spiritual drama is enacted of Christ and the Church. The husband is enacting the part of Christ and the wife is enacting the part of the Church. We play out this drama as we live together as human beings, down-to-earth, fallible sinners. If we ?re going to live together 365 days a year, it?s going to take a whole lot of the grace of God and a whole lot of saying, "I?m sorry. Please forgive." And a whole lot of rolling with the punches, isn?t it?

Now the third thing that I want to say is that every sacrifice, according to Mark 9, is to be salted with fire. I don?t really know what that verse means, and I have never found anybody that has been able to expound it very clearly to me. But there is something that my imagination gets a hold of here.

In the Old Testament, salt was used in some of the sacrifices. But "salted with fire"?that?s not a phrase that occurs in the Old Testament. In that passage, Mark 9:43-50, let me read that from the New English translation.

"If your hand is your undoing, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed than to keep both hands and go to hell and the unquenchable fire. And if your foot is your undoing, cut it off. It?s better to enter into life a cripple than to keep both your feet and be thrown into hell. And if it is your eye, tear it out. It is better to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye than to keep both eyes and be thrown into hell, where the devouring worm never dies and the fire is not quenched. For everyone will be salted with fire."

Now Jesus is making some outrageous statements here. He is describing the price of discipleship and He is startling these multitudes. Mind you, Jesus is not just talking to the disciples here, this intimate small group. He is talking to the multitudes. Do you think He is going to sell these concepts? Is He going to win a popularity contest with this kind of talk?

But He says, "You?re going to have to lose some perfectly legitimate things." People sometimes wonder, "Now why would God take away this great gift that He had given me? What would be wrong with that? What was wrong with this or that that I lost?"

If your house burns down, for example, or if you lose something valuable, it doesn?t necessarily mean that there?s something wrong with it. It means that God has a lesson here to teach you. There?s certainly nothing wrong with your hand and your foot. Those are parts of the body that God has created. And the eye we would consider one of the most essential parts of the body.

But Jesus said, "It?s better to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye than to keep both eyes and be thrown into hell, where the devouring worm never dies and the fire is not quenched. For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is a good thing. But if the salt loses its saltiness, what will you season it with?"

I take that to mean that the sacrifice is going to be costly. It?s a glorious thing, because it means love and creating an entity in which love is ruling. But it also going to be costly.

Lisa Barry: If you have a friend or family member who is having some difficulty in marriage, let me suggest two books that may be of help. The first is entitled LET ME BE A WOMAN. It was a book that Elisabeth wrote for her daughter Valerie as a wedding present. It helps women value the differences between men and women and discover God?s intention for marriage. THE MARK OF A MAN is another book that helps focus our attention on God?s plan for godly men.

For information on how to purchase either of these books, you can call us toll-free at 1-800-759-4JOY. Or you can write to Gateway to Joy, Box 82500, Lincoln, Nebraska, 68501. We?d also like you to visit our Web site if you get a chance. That address is gatewaytojoy.org. Today?s program has been a production of Back to the Bible.

Tomorrow Elisabeth talks about love?s acceptance, so join us then for another Gateway to Joy.