Lisa Barry: Have you ever been surprised by God? I have. Has God ever startled you with a difficult situation that led you to doubt His sovereignty? Well, today on Gateway to Joy, Elisabeth Elliot is going to talk about one of her faith-rattling experiences. And as you listen, I pray you'll be convinced that there is no situation that can separate you from the love of God. Let's head back to "The Cove Conference Center" where Elisabeth is speaking to a group of men and women. Here she is.

Elisabeth Elliot: Today?s talk is on acceptance. That, I believe, is the crux of the whole question of suffering. You know that the word "crux" is just the exact spelling of the Latin word, which is pronounced "kroox." It means cross. So we are constantly referring back to the cross of Jesus Christ; that is, the central symbol of our faith. It is a safe and happy shelter.

One of my favorite hymns, ever since I was a little girl, was "Beneath the Cross of Jesus." There?s a stanza that says, "O safe and happy shelter, O refuge tried and sweet, O trysting place where heaven?s love and heaven?s justice meet."

A great man who was severely tested was old Samuel Rutherford, born in 1600. He went through deep sufferings and imprisonment. He wrote this: "It is impossible to be submissive and religiously patient if ye stay your thoughts down among the confused rollings and wheels of second causes," such as "Oh, the place . . .", "Oh, the time . . .", "Oh, if this had been, this would not have followed . . .," "Oh, the linking of this accident with this time and place." "Look up to the master motion and the first wheel."

If we could just remember things like that when all sorts of trials and tribulations come into our lives, we would find that we could learn submission and what he calls religious patience. Stop staying your thoughts among the confused rollings and wheels of second causes. That has been a very liberating principle in my life.

Now the cross of course was the best thing and the worst thing that ever happened in human history. The Bible says, "Herein is love: that Christ laid down His life for us, and we in our turn are to lay down our lives for Him."

This kind of love is not a mere sentiment. It is not a mood. It is a grand and inexorable will for our perfection. The love of God is the will of God. The will of God is the love of God. Love suffers.

The word "suffering" comes from an original word that really means to undergo, to have happen. So today we have to think about acceptance of what looked like confused rollings and wheels and things that happened just by chance. Nothing happens by chance. God is up there. He has got the whole world in His hands. He?s got you and me in His hands. He is saying, "Will you love Me? Will you trust Me? Will you praise Me? Do you think you could run things better than I can?"

Well, love is also inextricably bound with sacrifice. There is a great mystery of the will of God and man?s permission to commit evil. The Lord of the universe?He who knew that when He created man, it would be He Himself who would have to go down to the very depths of hell and suffer for us.

So now I?ll begin giving you points. Number one is mystery. A mystery is something which is not explained, but revealed. Let?s look at Hebrews 2:14-18. "Since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity, so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death (that is, the devil) and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. For surely it is not angels He helps, but Abraham?s descendents." That?s you and me.

"For this reason, He had to be made like His brothers in every way, in order that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that He might make atonement for the sins of the people."

Verse 18 says, "Because He Himself suffered when He was tempted, He is able to help those who are being tempted."

He has been through the whole course, and He has suffered for us. Just think of the love of God and the mercy of God in knowing full well, from before the foundation of the world, that when He created man, man would defy Him.

The winds and the waves don?t defy Him. My husband and I live on the coast of Massachusetts. The tides come up twice a day to the exact inch that they?re supposed to come up to. The winds obey. The crabs obey. The lobsters obey. The giraffes obey. They all obey, but God did create a creature capable of defying Him. Why would He do that? Well, I think because He wanted us to learn to love Him voluntarily.

It is a mystery. It is not explained, but it is revealed. He Himself suffered when He was tempted and is therefore able to help those who are also being tempted. Now either God is God or He isn?t. Either He loves us or He doesn?t. Either we?re adrift in chaos, which means a disorder or meaningless, or we?re individuals created and loved and cherished by a loving Heavenly Father.

My very first year as a missionary in Ecuador was the time when I received by far the most difficult testings that I had ever had in my life. I was a single missionary. I had spent six months in Quito, Ecuador learning Spanish. But during that time, there were two British women that were struggling away in the western jungle, working on a language that had never been reduced to writing?a language of the Indians who are called Colorados. Those of you who speak Spanish of course know that the word "colorado" simply means red. These people were very aptly named, because they painted themselves brilliant red from head to toe. They were quite a scene.

But their language had never been reduced to writing. As far as we knew, there was nobody in the whole wide world that had ever learned their language, except the Colorados. These two British women had been struggling and toiling away for five years trying to learn the language. But they had not had linguistic training, and they heard that there was an American woman in Quito who had had some linguistic training. So they invited me to come down and work on this language with them. I was thrilled.

The first thing that I had to do was to find what we call an informant?somebody who had the skill and the patience to sit down with this apparently retarded foreigner and repeat over and over and over again what, for him, was the easiest language in the world. I was told that there were no interpreters. It was only the Indians themselves. So I prayed of course that God would send me an interpreter.

To my utter astonishment, there turned out to be one person, besides the Colorado Indians, who knew both Spanish and Colorado. This man?s name was Micario. He was out of a job. He heard that I was looking for somebody to help me. He was thrilled to have the opportunity. He furthermore was a fluent speaker of both of these languages. To top it all off, he was a Christian.

So with great joy and thanksgiving for the answer to prayer, I worked with him. He would come for about one hour each morning. All he would do would sit there and talk his language, while I did what I could to transcribe it into phonetics on paper. But then of course he could tell me what he had said in Spanish. So we worked very happily together, but it would take me about five or six hours after he had left each day in order to try to write down and decipher what I had written down of the Colorado language. Of course, he didn?t have any idea how to write the Colorado language. He just knew how to talk it. So it was my job to write it down.

We worked very happily together for only about maybe four to six weeks. I?ve forgotten exactly how long it was. But I was in my bedroom one day, reading my Bible early in the morning. The passage that I happened in the providence of God to be reading was in 1 Peter 4. "Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when His glory is revealed."

Right about that time, I heard a tremendous racket going on out in the jungle clearing where we lived. I heard gunshots. Now there wasn?t anything unusual about gunshots, because both the white people and the Indians who lived back in the jungles used guns for hunting. But these particular sounds that I heard were followed by people screaming. I could hear horses galloping and all kinds of pandemonium. So I raced outside and learned that Micario, my informant, had just been murdered.

Of course, I was assailed by the enemy of souls with all sorts of hideous doubts and thoughts about God. Maybe He wasn?t even up there. Maybe there wasn?t any such thing as God. I began to ask all sorts of questions. "Lord, did You call me to be a missionary? Did You answer my prayer for an informant?" There were just all these questions bombarding my mind as I looked at this dead man. I of course reminded God that there wasn?t anybody else who could do the job that Micario was doing.

Either we are adrift in chaos or we are individuals, created, loved, upheld and placed purposefully, exactly where we are. Can you believe that? Can you trust God for that?

Lisa Barry: I hope after hearing about Elisabeth?s experience that you can say yes to that question. It?s so easy to think that we?re in God?s only blind spot, but God has no blind spots. Even in the most dreadful tragedy, He can and will help you. If you?d like to hear the encouraging words from this series again, then why not purchase a copy of the two-cassette series entitled CROWNED BECAUSE HE SUFFERED.

The cost is $11.50, and 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. You can also find us on the Internet at gatewaytojoy.org. Gateway to Joy is a listener-supported production of Back to the Bible.

Tomorrow we?ll hear what happened after the death of Elisabeth?s interpreter, so join us then for another Gateway to Joy.