Lisa Barry: When I was in high school, it was the '70s. Everyone was doing experimenting on my generation. "Make it easier on students. Then they'll like school better." So the result was modular scheduling, huge gaps of free time to get in all kinds of trouble. They opened a smoking lounge for students, because, after all, the students will smoke anyway. The result? A whole generation of students who were able to skip geography and civics entirely, and I had a D- GPA. Is lowering the standard productive? Not in my case. So if you're tempted to think that your trials are insurmountable, Elisabeth Elliot has a word of encouragement and a challenge for you today. 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, talking this week about a subject that you may think sounds very much like last week. This time it's "Endure Hardness."

I am, of course, in a way continuing what we talked about last week-faithful endurance-but there are a whole lot of things in our lives which are hard that we hardly even think of as being a test of endurance. I gave you a good number of Scripture references about endurance, and I'm not going to go through them all again. But I would just give you one more.

1 Peter 4:1 says, "Since Christ had to suffer physically for you, you must fortify yourselves with the same inner attitude that He must have had."

Haven't you discovered in your own life that you can change your attitude? If you're in a grump and a pout and disgusted with everything, but your best friend happens to come along with a wonderful suggestion of a place to go or something to eat or something to do, your attitude can change mighty fast, can't it? Now you can choose a different attitude.

My mother had one special punishment for those of us who would come to the table in a black mood. She would simply say, "I don't like that face. Now you go back to your room until you find a happy one. Then you can come back." Well, we didn't want to come back at all. We would grump that much more. But the time finally came when, if we wanted to join the club again and be with everybody else, we had to come back with a happy face.

But let's remember that the things which are just merely hard and may not seem like major testings, God has assigned in order that we may learn to know Him. The Apostle Paul speaks many, many times about suffering.

He says, "We put no stumbling block in anyone's path so that our ministry will not be discredited. Rather, as servants of God, we commend ourselves in every way-in great endurance, in troubles, hardships and distresses; in beatings, imprisonments, in riots, in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; in truthful speech and in the power of God with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as imposters; known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing and yet possessing all things."

I read a quotation yesterday from Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a famous Russian author. This is what he says about self-discipline: "In retrospect, almost all my life, since the day I was first arrested, had been the same. Just for that particular week, that month, that season, that year, there had always been some reason for not writing. It was inconvenient or dangerous or I was too busy. Always some need to postpone it. If I had given into common sense once, twice, ten times, my achievement as a writer would have been incomparably smaller. But I had gone on writing as a brick layer in overcrowded prison huts, in transit jails without so much as a pencil. When I was dying of cancer in an exile's hovel after a double teaching shift, I had let nothing-dangers, hindrances, the need for rest-interrupt my writing. Only because of that could I say at 55 that I now had no more than 20 years of work to get through and had put the rest behind me.

My petty interferences-people, children, housework, public demands, but most of all, my own native undisciplined self-bump against such reality. I continue to pound my bald fist against my own soft soul and to insist, 'No excuses. No excuses.'" Well, that's a soldier-like testimony, isn't it?

Now I don't know if you get WORLD magazine. It's an excellent Christian magazine. The issue of August 20, 1997 has an article entitled "Sissifying the Military." That's right. You got it. "Sissifying the Military."

"In today's boot camps, army drill instructors are not allowed to raise their voices. Instead, they must help recruits avoid stress and raise their self-esteem. In the Marines, obstacle courses are called 'confidence courses' with footstools to make it easier to climb over the walls. In the Navy, recruits are told that it is okay to cry and are given blue cards to give to their trainers when they are feeling blue. Military units are evaluated with the help of 'focus groups' that assess not combat readiness, but whether or not soldiers feel very close.

As reported by syndicated columnist John Leo, today's military (like education, business and other institutions) is capitulating to the current culture of therapy, with its pop psychology, self-image coddling, and touchy-feely sensitivity exercises. The military brass says the changes are to accommodate today's young people, who are unaccustomed to discipline and authority and who easily have their feelings hurt.

G. I. Jane's fantasy story line aside, Mr. Leo shows that in the real military, the main factor in this kinder, gentler approach to warrior formation is mixed-gender basic training and the pressure to make sure that women perform as well as men.

Because women are twice as likely to get injured as men during basic training, standards were lowered for everyone. Carrying a stretcher had always been a two-man job. Now, four people are required. The principle of comparable effort allows women to make up for poor performance in one area by scoring higher in areas in which they excel. A woman who flunks hand-to-hand combat can make up the points by scoring high in map reading. Gender-norming sets different criteria for men and women." Gender-norming. Different criteria for men and women.

"Climbing ropes have a yellow line where women can stop. Men must do twenty push-ups, but women just have to do six. Throwing hand grenades had to gender-normed when it was found that 45% of female Marines could not throw them far enough to avoid blowing themselves up. Such affirmative-action policies are resulting in lower standards, bad morale and a feminized military.

Many officers and enlisted personnel are opposed to the new policies and are pushing to an end to mixed-gender training, but the political pressures, especially in light of sexual misconduct scandals and charges of sexism in the ranks, are intense.

Beginning with the Aristotelian question, 'What is the purpose of the military?' and setting policies accordingly might serve the nation better in the event of some politically-incorrect event, such as war."

I said, "Wow!" when I read that one. And I thought of old Samuel Rutherford, who was imprisoned for his faith in Scotland several centuries ago. He said, "For some, it is down crosses and up umbrellas, but I am persuaded that we must take heaven with the wind and the rain in our faces."

Are you one of those who says, "Down crosses and up umbrellas"? Or are you prepared to take heaven with the wind and the rain in your face? Let's follow good old Rutherford.

Some things of course may be legitimately alleviated. Other things must be necessarily endured. May God give us the grace to know the difference. Is it just alleviation that we're asking for? Is it something that needs to be endured and may be very painful?

An author named Grou (1731-1803) said, "It's when the heavenly fire has departed and the soul is cool again that we discover the real quality of our will." It is when the heavenly fire has departed and the soul is cool again that we discover the real quality of our will.

I remember my dismay when, at the end of fifth grade in public school, we were told that we were going to be assigned either to Miss Evanson or Miss Yarrington, who were the sixth grade teachers. So they lined us up and we counted off, "One, two, one, two." I was trembling in my boots because I had heard that nobody wants Miss Evanson. "She is too hard."

Guess who I got? I got Miss Evanson. You know, Miss Evanson was one of the most wonderful teachers I ever had in my life. I didn't appreciate it then as much as I do now, although I did appreciate her. She could keep order in that classroom with her eyes. She knew how to demand respect from us and she was a brilliant teacher, a marvelous teacher. She got us excited about the Egyptian tombs, excited about spelling and grammar and numbers and music and a whole lot of other things. But we had to endure a certain degree of hardness.

Thank God for the hardness in your life. Believe that God does know what He is doing.

Lisa Barry: Isn't it a relief to know that? And for many of us, the thing we need to focus on more than anything is God. But that takes discipline. If you're lacking in that area, let me suggest a book Elisabeth has written, called DISCIPLINE: THE GLAD SURRENDER. It won't make the job easy, but it will make it purposeful and effective.

The cost is $11. You can send that, along with your request, to Gateway To Joy, Box 82500, Lincoln, Nebraska, 68501. Or call 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.

Tomorrow Elisabeth talks about more ways to endure hardness, so join us then for another Gateway To Joy.