Elisabeth Elliot: What is God's assignment for you today? Are you willing to accept what seems to be a trivial round, a common task?

Lisa Barry: I used to think of housework as a necessary evil. I've never liked it, nor have I been good at it. The fact that it also seemed so trivial made it even worse. But things are different now. No, I still don't enjoy it and I'm still not good at it, but knowing that it's a fragrant offering to God puts everything in a different light. It's sort of like having a bank account that you were told was non-interest-bearing. But then, lo and behold, you discovered that you'd been earning interest every single minute of every single day--gaining interest while washing the floor, sweeping up cereal and turning socks right-side out.

Well, have I wet your appetite to hear more? I hope so, because Elisabeth Elliot is about to share a few of her own fragrant offerings for Christ. That's coming up next on 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 on the subject of the trivial round.

I left you yesterday peeling an onion at the kitchen sink. Remember? Well, some of you, maybe one or two, were peeling onions or doing something equally mundane and unexciting. I don't know what the rest of you were doing. Some were working, some resting perhaps, having coffee, driving, whatever.

The trivial round is a phrase that comes from an old hymn. "The trivial round, the common task, will furnish all we ought to ask; room to deny ourselves, a road to bring us daily nearer God."

One of the most important principles of the spiritual life is to learn to see the glory, the translucence of the Christian life. It is not opaque. We look through and beyond what we see here to Him who learned obedience in a carpenter's shop and did always those things that please the Father. A different attitude, a new understanding and vision, will help us to begin to practice the great spiritual principle of oblation, which means offering.

I want to read a story-not about onions or carpentry-but the story of a crucial lesson in my own life, in my young life. It's found in my book called PASSION AND PURITY. I'd been telling the story of how Jim Elliot and I had fallen in love in college.

"A couple of days remained before Jim and I were to part. My family came for my graduation and I had to make choices between going to various events with them or going for a walk with Jim. Sometimes they won; sometimes he did. One more trip to the lagoon. 'It's going to be hard,' he said, 'harder than we'd like to think.'

"Then the next night, a Sunday, no time for the long walk to the lagoon, only a field near the campus, where we sat on a blanket while dew fell and ruined my curled hair. 'Man, your hair sure went straight,' he said, just when I was hoping he would not notice. I think this evening was the first time Jim touched me. He ran the back of his finger down my cheek, a small gesture big with meaning. I thought of it a thousand times afterwards."

Now I'm sure you're wondering, "What in the world has this got to do with the trivial round?" Bear with me, here.

"The verses in the DAILY LIGHT that day were, 'Everything that may abide the fire, ye shall make it go through the fire. The Lord your God proveth you, to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. Thou, O God, hast proved us. Thou hast tried us as silver is tried.'

"Our love was having to be tested, what seemed to me, very severely. Purity comes at a high price. There was no getting away from that. It seemed that every book I picked up reminded me of the same spiritual principle.

"Oswald Chambers wrote, 'What has been like water from the well of Bethlehem to you recently? Love? Friendship? Spiritual blessing? Then at the peril of your soul, you take it to satisfy your soul. If you do, you cannot pour it out before the Lord. How am I to pour out spiritual gifts or natural friendship or love? How can I give them to the Lord? In one way only-in the determination of the mind, and that takes about two seconds. If I hold spiritual blessings or friendship for myself, they will corrupt me, no matter how beautiful they are. I have to pour them out before the Lord, give them to Him in my mind, though it looks as if I am wasting them, even as David poured the water out on the sand to be instantly sucked up.'"

Chambers' reference is the story of David's sudden longing. When he was hiding from his enemies in the Cave of Adullam, he longed for a drink of water from the well of Bethlehem. Three of his men risked their lives to pass through the Philistines' line and get it for him. David poured it out on the ground, refusing to "drink the blood" of his men. God gives us material for sacrifice.

"Sometimes the sacrifice makes little sense to others, but when offered to Him it is always accepted. What was the point in God's asking Abraham for the sacrifice of his beloved son, Isaac? The story has often been attacked as pagan and has been grossly misunderstood.

"Our offerings to God may very likely be seen as senseless or even fanatical, but He receives them. Jesus received the precious ointment from the worshipping woman, although those present thought it was a foolish waste.

"It's a lesson I understood very dimly in 1948, but it has become clearer and clearer the further I go with God. I've tried to explain it sometimes to people who are lonely and longing for love. 'Give it to Jesus,' I say. 'The loneliness itself is material for sacrifice. The very longings themselves can be offered to Him who understands perfectly. The transformation into something He can use for the good of others is only when the offering is put into His hands.' What will He do with these offerings? Never mind. He knows what to do."

I can imagine that there may be a woman listening today who is pregnant and feeling absolutely miserable with morning sickness, but you have to drag yourself out of bed. You have to take care of those other children. You have to feed them and clothe them and do the laundry and all the rest of the things. Your husband can't possibly understand what you're going through, although he may be very kind and solicitous and try. Perhaps this is the day for you to learn to make the offering of what seems impossible to the Lord Himself-this trivial round, this common task.

I think I've told the story before, but I think it bears repeating, of the wonderful old lady who was what they call an anchoress in a cathedral in England. An anchoress is a lady who puts herself totally at the disposal of God by being shut up in a walled cell in the wall of a great cathedral. There is one little slit on the side toward the church, where she can look through and see what is going on during the church service. Then this lady had one little tiny window that opened out onto the street. She was in there for life and she was doing spiritual work. Not only was she praying constantly for the people of that town, which was her primary job, but she was also available for spiritual counseling to the townspeople as they came by that little window, which happened to be on the public thoroughfare.

But when the public thoroughfare was moved to another location, no longer did the people come to the little window for counsel. The little children discovered the lady and they began to bring their toys for her to mend. She went from doing what was spiritual counseling to what looks like secular work-the mending of little children's toys. They called her the lady with the glue pot. But that lady knew very well that the mending of children's toys was just as important in the sight of God for her, because that was God's assignment for her.

What is God's assignment for you today? Are you willing to accept what seems to be a trivial round, a common task? "If on our daily course our mind be set to hallow all we find, new treasures still of countless price God will provide for sacrifice." What is the sacrifice that God is giving to you? Your work. Your job. Or you who are unable to work-your patience in sitting in that wheelchair or lying in that bed, having to be taken care of by other people. Is your mind set to hallow what you find? These are the givens of your life.

Learn to see through the task itself to Him who watches so tenderly to see how it's done. To Him who understands so thoroughly and waits so patiently for us to recognize the glory-the glory in the shop, the combine, the nursing home, the hospital, the kitchen sink, the nursery. Where do you expect to serve God? It should be wherever He has put you today. We don't have tomorrow, do we? We have no way of knowing that we're going to be here tomorrow. But what are the givens in your life for today? They will bring you daily nearer to God, if you learn through them to deny yourself.

"Only, O Lord, in Thy dear love, fit us for perfect rest above; and help us this and every day to live more nearly as we pray."

Lisa Barry: If you'd like to hear more of the story Elisabeth told on today's program, you can find it in the book entitled PASSION AND PURITY. It's a true story, but also a very practical one that reveals how we can offer every part of life to God, even our love life. The cost is $12, and that includes shipping and handling.

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.

Well, are you going through a trial right now that has made you think God is against you? Elisabeth has a few words of encouragement for you tomorrow on the next Gateway To Joy.