Elisabeth Elliot: What is the job God has asked you to do? Do you feel qualified? Are you prepared to obey? Do you think you?re adequate for the job? You?re not. That has nothing to do with whether or not you must be obedient.

Lisa Barry: I don?t know about you, but that statement gives me a chill of excitement. Maybe that sounds strange to some of you, but hear me out. Can you imagine how defeated we would feel if doing God?s work was dependent on our strength? Or there may be times when I think my own efforts are pretty valuable. But most often I feel like Peter, who was always so gung-ho to follow Jesus, and yet he was always getting tangled up in his own fishing line; figuratively speaking, of course.

But what thrills me is that I can serve God perfectly through His strength, even though I may stumble. Today on Gateway to Joy, Elisabeth Elliot talks more about the freedom of obedience. The first step is learning to depend on God. Here she is.

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 my talk today about "Whatever Happened to Obedience?"

Yesterday I told about the time my husband and I visited that great arch in St. Louis and learned some things about the necessity of building something like that with perfect exactitude. Then I had just ended my program by telling you about falling in love with Jim Elliot. I didn?t of course let him know that I had fallen in love with him, but I was very interested in this man as I watched him around the campus of Wheaton College back in 1948.

He was a spiritual leader on the campus, president of the Foreign Missions Fellowship, the kind of guy who was always going up to people and grabbing them by the lapel and saying, "Hey, buddy! How come you?re not going to the mission field?" If they stuttered and said, "I don?t know. I mean, like, I don?t really feel called," he?d say, "You don?t need a call. You need a kick in the pants."

I saw that just about every qualification that I was looking for in a husband seemed to be embodied in this man, Jim Elliot. But my chances of attracting his attention, I felt, were nil. However, when it came time to get autographs in our yearbooks, I did, with a certain amount of trembling and fear, ask Jim to sign his name in my yearbook, hoping that he might sign something besides just his name. He did.

He signed his sweeping autograph, and then he wrote something else. He shut the book and handed it back to me. I quickly turned to the page and found a Scripture reference. I raced back to the dorm, got my Bible and looked up 2 Timothy 2:4. "A soldier on active service will not let himself be involved in civilian affairs. He must be wholly at his commanding officer?s disposal."

I wasn?t sure why he had chosen that verse?whether it was just for me, in which case I felt that I did have a little hope. Maybe he had thought of me more than once. But I liked the second part of the verse, because it was clear that Jim had decided what he wanted. His desire was to serve his Master. He was wholly at his commanding officer?s disposal.

His message came across loud and clear?that nobody was going to deflect him from that primary and supreme aim to please Him who had chosen him to be a soldier. You must, if you ever want to know the liberty and the happiness that obedience brings, make up your mind what you want. What do you want above everything else in the world?

It?s tough to say, "I want the will of God," when I have a sneaking suspicion that there are a lot of things in my life that may not fit into that. We balk at the idea, when at the same time we?re glibly praying, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." If you pray that prayer, the chances are pretty good that God is going to take you up on that.

That was what happened to me when I went to Ecuador. Before I had been a missionary for one year, I had three major blows to my faith. The informant who was helping me with the native language was murdered. All of my language materials, everything that went into the writing of a language that had never been written down, was stolen. The station on which Jim Elliot had been working, who was by that time my fianc?, went down the river in a flood. I don?t know whether that fits your idea of how God helps a new missionary, but it didn?t fit mine.

When I was 12 years old, I told the Lord that I wanted Him to work out His will in my life at any cost. When He set about doing that, I was amazed. I didn?t think it was going to be that way. We never do. The will of God is never exactly what you expect it to be. It may seem to be much worse, but in the end it?s going to be a lot better and a lot bigger.

I want you to think about this. What is your dependence? Christians are people who know they can?t make it alone. Christians are people who have accepted God?s estimate of them and the remedy. God?s estimate of us is that we are sinners. We need a Savior. You wouldn?t be a Christian if you didn?t know you needed a Savior.

One experience after another in our lives has to bring us to the point of stripping. We have to be stripped of all the veneers, all the shell, all the accretions that build up whereby we protect ourselves from reality. God has to peel away the layers, the way you peel away an onion, until we get down to reality and we realize we cannot possibly take our next breath without God.

It?s easy for us to imagine that what we?re good at, we?ve done all by ourselves. The truth is that my heart would not take the next beat if it were not for God. No gift I have been given has anything to do with me. I?m dependent. He is my Lord and Master. I?ve discovered that every job that God has assigned to me has turned out to be too big for me, even things I felt capable of doing.

Jim Elliot graduated from college with highest honors. He went to the jungle of Ecuador to be a missionary to the Quichua Indians. He had to start from the bottom rung of a language ladder. He had to learn Spanish as the national language of the country first, of course. Then he had to start at the bottom of an unwritten language, Quichua.

He had graduated with highest honor in classical Greek, and he couldn?t speak a word of one of the easiest languages in the world?Quichua. The Indians could only reach the conclusion that the poor man was retarded, because they had never heard of anybody who didn?t speak Quichua.

Then they discovered that he didn?t know how to thatch a roof. They had never seen a man who didn?t know how to thatch a roof. Then they tried to get him to pole a canoe. He didn?t know how to pole a wooden canoe up the rapids. To them, he was a bumbling idiot. He was totally dependent not only on God, but on these Indians who didn?t know half of what he knew.

What is the job God has asked you to do? Do you feel qualified? Are you prepared to obey? Do you think you?re adequate for the job? You?re not. That has nothing to do with whether or not you must be obedient. If you?re going to be obedient, you?re going to have to trust God to do what you can?t do. Dependence?it?s time you declared your dependence. Nobody is ever adequate for any job that God has assigned. It?s a cooperation between you and Him to do the job in His strength.

When you have decided that what you really want is the kind of happiness that God offers, when you have declared your dependence, then you must accept His strength for your weakness. There was at least one thing that Paul had that he didn?t want, and that was a thorn. Paul said that he asked the Lord three times to remove the thorn, and the answer was no. The answer was "My grace is all you need."

What is the thing in your life that you don?t want there? That you feel hinders your happiness and is an obstacle to your freedom? Have you been asking God to change that thing? Perhaps He is saying that His grace is all you need. You have to make a decision. Are you going to do what God asks you to do or are you going to do your own thing? Remember His words?"If you continue in My words, then you are My disciples and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." Ponder that. Do you want to know the truth? Do you want to be His disciple? Do you want to be free? Remember the "if" at the beginning of that verse. "If you continue in My words." Obedience is what He asks.

Whatever happened to obedience? Jesus Christ chose to be weak so that you and I might be strong. He chose to die so that we might live. He chose to become poor so that we through His poverty might be rich. Do you want to be free? Do you want to be happy? The road to freedom and happiness is obedience.

Remember that simple little hymn? "When we walk with the Lord in the light of His Word, what a glory He sheds on our way! When we do His good will, He abides with us still and with all who will trust and obey."

Lisa Barry: Are you willing to be counted among the many who are saying right now, "Yes, Lord; I want to trust and obey; I?m tired of relying on my own strength; I?m tired of looking for some emotional verification of my relationship with You; from today forward I am choosing to live by faith in obedience, and I?ll leave the details and the circumstances in Your hands"? Can you imagine how much freedom we would all have in our lives if we truly lived each day with an attitude and a commitment like that? It can happen. It is God?s will for you.

If you?d like to learn more about how to live in obedience, I?d encourage you to purchase a copy of Elisabeth?s book, THE LIBERTY OF OBEDIENCE. It?s not a thick book, but you?ll find yourself pondering each word and phrase to get the full effect. The cost of the book is $5. You can purchase a copy any one of three ways.

First, you can call us at this toll-free number: 1-800-759-4JOY. Or you can order through our Web site at gatewaytojoy.org. That address is not just for ordering. You?ll also find many other good things, so why not check it out? Finally, our postal address is Gateway to Joy, Box 82500, Lincoln, Nebraska, 68501. As always, we have a tape of this series available. Today?s program has been a production of Back to the Bible.

Tomorrow Elisabeth talks about all you really need in life. Find out what that is the next time we meet for Gateway to Joy.