Lisa Barry: Is there anything in life that threatens your faith? Could it be the unexpected death of someone you love? Prolonged suffering? Or maybe it's persecution. Today on Gateway To Joy, Elisabeth Elliot looks at the lives of various people who have faced all these sorts of things. What was the result? Did they fall away? Did they shrink back? The answer is no, which leaves us with the question of the century, and that is, "Is there anything in this world that God can't use for His glory?" You'll find out the answer to that as we get started on this Wednesday 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 my talk today entitled "He's got the whole world in His hands."

I ended yesterday's talk by mentioning a lovely book called GLENDA'S STORY. The subtitle is LED BY GRACE. It's a perfect illustration of just what I'm talking about this week. Glenda had a terrible background, just the most abusive childhood that you can imagine. I couldn't have imagined it if I hadn't read her story myself. Yet she is a sweet lovely Christian woman, with a lovely family, a redeemed household, one that is like a shining light in Smithfield, Virginia.

Look over your own past. Think of all the things, which seem to you to be terrible obstacles, things which you feel perhaps have prevented you from reaching the goals that you would like to reach. Yet it doesn't make any difference how full of obstacles to achievement our personal history may be, or how many hindrances and frustrations of the real purpose there may be, all of it, if we begin to see it through God's eyes, is help and preparation for God's work in each one of us.

I think of Chuck Colson, a man well known all over the world. If it weren't for the fact that he was a sinful man, and as a result was in prison, would he have the influence that he has in his position today as a Christian and as the founder of the PRISON FELLOWSHIP?

We can think of dozens of examples, can't we, of other people's lives. We think, "Oh, yes. Well, look what God did for that person. I wish God would do that for me." God has a different plan for you. God has a different plan for me. Does it make any difference to God's ultimate purpose whether a thing is ordained or only, we might say, merely allowed? Does it make any difference whether a thing is ordained or just simply allowed?

The purpose remains the same. It is our sanctification. It is that God wants to shape you and me into the image of His Son. Are there hindrances that are going to prevent that altogether? No. The only thing that is going to prevent that will be your will. Nobody else can prevent you from doing the will of God.

God is not going to force you. God is waiting for you to trust and obey. The purpose of God ultimately is to sanctify us, to make us holy, that we might become instruments of His peace in the world-visible, walking, breathing signs of the invisible reality of the presence of Christ within us.

"Christ liveth in me," Paul said. "And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me." Who is it who said that? The Apostle Paul. He was a murderer. He was determined to kill Christians. And on his way to do just that in Damascus, he was smitten by God and was made blind. His immediate response was the recognition that it was indeed God who had smitten him. He said, "What do You want me to do, Lord?" His first response.

William Ellery Channing said, "No evil is intolerable, except a guilty conscience." No evil is intolerable. In other words, we cannot bear a guilty conscience. We can bear anything else, but we can't bear a guilty conscience, not for any length of time, not with any recognition of our own guilt. That is what is intolerable.

"There is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Immanuel's veins, and sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains." "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now I'm found; was blind, but now I see."

I've used the word "sacrament" this week. It means a visible sign of an invisible reality. The sacramental understanding of life helps us to accept humbly God's grace through the medium of things, happenings-God coming into our souls by the means of the humblest accidents, the intermingling of spirit and sense. God comes into our souls by these strange seeming accidents.

My own story contains a number of events and things, which as I look back, all had fit into the pattern for good in God's plan for me. I grew up during the Great Depression. I can remember how very difficult it was for my father to support his family of then only three children. Later on, he had six.

But during those Depression years, I think he was making somewhere between two and maybe three thousand dollars. It was a very difficult thing. I don't think I ever heard the word "steak"-the meat, steak-until I got into college. We ate a lot of macaroni and a lot of soup. We didn't have money, of course, to buy a lot of things. I don't remember getting new clothes at all, really, for maybe the first six or eight years of my life. I wore hand-me-downs.

I also think about the fact that I was always very shy. I had very few friends. I was full of fear. I had a number of illnesses, up until I was about nine years. Back in those days, we actually had a family doctor that came with his little bag and came right up the stairs into the bedroom. It's hard to believe that that could have ever happened, but he was a wonderful old man. He seemed to me to be very old.

I can remember having my ear lanced. It was an operation that had to be done right there in the bedroom. I had various illnesses, colds and sinus trouble and tonsillectomy and measles and mumps and whooping cough and all the rest of it.

Of course, when I went to school, I missed classes. Then I would think, "Oh, I'll never catch up with this." I was absolutely convinced that I would be a total failure. In fact, when I was in the first grade, I didn't think I'd be able to pass arithmetic.

When I was nine, my friend Essie, who was also nine, died. She died of mastoid pneumonia and diabetes, all combined. We prayed for her. Her family prayed. My family prayed. Lots of people prayed that God would heal her. The answer was no. Remember, He has got the whole world in His hands.

God wanted Essie in heaven at the age of nine. The fact that I lost my one and only playmate at that time was not primary in God's design, although that of course also had its place.

Well, then I turned out to be too tall, I thought. By the time I was in the eighth grade, I was 5'9", not unusual for girls to reach their full height by the time they're in the eighth grade. But of course, all the boys were not much above my elbow. When the teacher needed to have somebody pull the blinds, it was I who could reach them, I who could write on the top of the blackboard, and I who had to stand at the end of the line in school when we lined up to go out to the playground.

We were supposed to learn softball in the fifth grade in Henry School in Philadelphia. But I left Henry School at the end of fourth grade, because my parents moved to New Jersey. When I got to New Jersey, I found out that the kids had learned softball in the fourth grade. So can you guess who was always the last one chosen to be on the team? Well, of course there were no other options. I was always the last one. When I came up to bat, ask yourself who struck out every time? Because nobody ever taught me how to play softball.

I got a Valentine in the sixth grade that I've never forgotten. It absolutely demolished me. It was one of those nasty, so-called comic Valentines. It just confirmed all my fears about myself. Nobody would love me. Nobody would like me.

I went to a boarding school and the headmistress tore strips off me verbally, because I was selfish and self-centered and shy. She said, "The only reason that you're shy is because you're thinking about yourself." I hadn't thought about it that way, but she was right. You know, she did a wonderful thing for me, besides the terrible things. She introduced me to Amy Carmichael.

Now what does this have to do with my subject this week? "He's got the whole world in His hands." I can look back with thanksgiving. Nothing is for nothing. Nothing in God's economy is meaningless. I cannot ever thank Mrs. Dubose enough for having introduced me to the writings of Amy Carmichael of India.

I try to do everything I can to encourage my radio listeners, "Get Amy Carmichael's books." Yes, they are in print. If you go to your bookstore and they tell you, "Oh, they're all out of print," you tell them they are mistaken. There are 14 Amy Carmichael books, which can be obtained from THE CHRISTIAN LITERATURE CRUSADE in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania. But they have shaped my life. She has had a deeper influence in my life, apart from my own parents and a few other people that I've known personally, than anyone else.

God knows what He is doing. He has got the whole world in His hands. He rules. He overrules. He takes obstacles and makes beautiful things out of them. Will you trust Him?

Lisa Barry: If you'd like to go deeper into the life of Amy Carmichael as Elisabeth did, we have a few books that should be of interest to you. The first is a biography about Amy's life written by Elisabeth Elliot. It's called A CHANCE TO DIE. If you're interested in some of Amy's writing, we carry a small book entitled IF. It's one of those books that packs a good punch on every page.

For more information on either of these books or any of our other resources, you can call us on our toll-free number. That's 1-800-759-4JOY. That's 1-800-759-4569. We'd also like to encourage you to support this program financially, if it's been helpful to you. That's the best way we know of to keep the message going strong. The address to send a gift to is Gateway To Joy, Box 82500, Lincoln, Nebraska, 68501. Our Internet ministry address is gatewaytojoy.org. Gateway To Joy has been a production of Back to the Bible.

Tomorrow Elisabeth shares a bit of her own heritage as a testimony to God's sovereignty, so make it a point to join us then for another Gateway To Joy.