Elisabeth Elliot: Prayer is the highest privilege that God gives to any of us, and regardless of what the plain, hard work (physical or mental) may be that God has called us to do, we are also called to prayer.

Lisa Barry: Do you have a hard time making prayer a priority in your life? I do. I know it's vitally important, and God has answered many of my prayers in spectacular ways. But I still find myself feeling guilty about not praying enough. Is that true of you, too? Well, Elisabeth Elliot is going to help all of us find some new motivation to that end. So I hope you can stay with us for Gateway To Joy next.

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 with you again today about "A Woman's Work."

Years ago, when I was working on the biography of Amy Carmichael, my husband Lars and I visited India in order to see the Dohnavur Fellowship. It's the place that Amy Carmichael had established in South India as a home and a refuge for little children who were being abused and used for sexual purposes in connection with Hindu temple worship.

And we had the privilege of not only staying there as a guest for nine days-I had the privilege of staying in Amy's room, sitting at her writing table, looking at her books, studying the underlinings and the markings and the marginal notations. Well, it was a thrill, and I won't go into all of that now.

But one of the things that we wanted to do was to have a ride in a bullock bandy. You who have read my biography of Amy Carmichael called A CHANCE TO DIE have heard about the bandy. It was a little two-wheeled cart, not so small. The wheels were very big-a two-wheeled wooden cart pulled by two bullocks, two young bulls, who were yoked together.

And Amy, when she was doing her itinerant evangelism for six or seven years before establishing the children's work, traveled either on foot or in a bullock bandy. And of the two, I would take foot any day. But in the heat of South India there were times when the white people couldn't take that, and so they traveled in a bullock bandy, which was a little covered cart.

Lars and I took about a ten-minute ride in one of those, and I'll tell you, it was about nine minutes longer than we wanted. Talk about bouncing! I mean, we were banged up and down on a relatively smooth road. There were no springs.

But I noticed some things which give me a good spiritual illustration. There were two bullocks and only one yoke, and they both pulled the same cart, and they both had to be going in the same direction. Now the work in which I am given the privilege of cooperating with the Lord Himself is the will of God. I see the bandy as the will of God for my family, for one thing, those for whom I pray, for whom I live and work.

The bandy might be, in another case, this radio program. It's a job I believe God has given me to do, and I am yoked together with Him. We have to be going in the same direction. We have to be agreeing that we are both pulling the same cart. And as I yield myself to God, I surrender my will to the will of the Father, and that's exactly what Jesus did. His yoke is easy. His burden is light.

Now what is His yoke? Well, the yoke that Jesus willingly and gladly took upon Himself was the will of God. And so I become a cooperator, held in the same yoke-the easy yoke, the yoke of the will of God, cooperating as one bullock cooperates with another one in pulling the bandy.

Prayer is my highest privilege, and serving God through the medium of plain, ordinary, hard work (physical or mental) is my second highest privilege. And prayer which is the highest privilege is, in a sense, the hardest work, because I think it is under the most severe attack by Satan.

Now I told you I was going to be talking about "A Woman's Work," and I am. This is a woman's work-prayer. Prayer is the highest privilege that God gives to any of us, and regardless of what the plain, hard work (physical or mental) may be that God has called us to do, we are also called to prayer.

When Lars and I were in that miserable bullock cart, we were completely dependent on the harmonious cooperation of the two bullocks. If one of them was willing to pull the cart, and the other one was not, we would have been in big trouble. And so it is if I am going to cooperate with God, then I have to be submissive to the will of the Father, because Jesus Christ is submissive to the will of the Father. You remember how He prayed in Gethsemane, "Not my will, but Thine be done."

And so when I come into my study, and there is a pile of work on my desk that I don't really relish tackling, I realize that stress is going to set in if I resist that work. Stress will not trouble me if I take His yoke upon me and learn of Him, because He is meek and humble in heart, gentle and humble.

So I need to be sure that the work that I am doing is what God has called me to do. And every day I pray that the Lord will help me to do what He wants me to do during that day. As a wife, for example, I can find instructions in Scripture regarding my job. My job as a wife is to respect my husband, to make life as pleasant and as easy for him as I possibly can, to recognize that he is my head, and when necessary, to submit.

There are times when my will is not Lars' will, my tastes are not always Lars' tastes, my thing is not always his thing, and so I find instruction in Scripture. What is the will of God in this particular situation?

And I would commend to you this little suggestion in your own work, whatever it is, keep asking the Lord, "What do you want me to do, Lord? How shall I do it? Please help me. Give me wisdom. Give me that gentle, humble spirit that characterized your Son, Jesus, when He was here on earth."

As a mother, I find instructions in the Scripture regarding my work. My work as a mother now is very different from what it was when Valerie was at home and she was just a little child. Valerie is a full-grown woman, and she lives all the way on the other side of the continent. What is my work? I think my primary work as a mother is prayer. I am to be her support and her strength. I am to be one of the principle people who prays for Valerie. Of course there are others who pray for her, too, but that is my primary job.

What is my job as a woman? Do I find instructions in Scripture regarding the will of God there? How am I to cooperate with God in being a woman? It was God who made me a woman, wasn't it? Femininity was God's idea. I can kick against the pricks as it says in Scripture. The ox goad-I can resist it or I can surrender. I can say, "Thank you, Lord, for giving me the job of womanhood. Help me to be thoroughly womanly." And as a homemaker, I can find instructions in Scripture regarding my work.

I came across what I thought was a very disturbing clipping. It was a notice about a book by a woman named Melody Beattie. The book was entitled CO-DEPENDENT NO MORE. Now I have not read the book, but I know that I can get myself into very hot water by using the word "co-dependent" But let me tell you what Melody Beattie means by this, and I think you will have some clues as to why this has become such a confusing issue for Christians.

Melody Beattie says, "You may be co-dependent if you feel responsible for other people's feelings, thoughts, actions and needs. You may be co-dependent if you feel anxiety, pity and guilt when other people have a problem. You may be co-dependent when you feel compelled to help with that problem."

I think I quoted my friend, Judy Squire, on a program not very long ago in which Judy Squire had said that "What the world calls co-dependency, God sometimes would call sacrificial love." Now I don't want to get into all that co-dependency is supposed to mean, but let's just take this one thing that Melody Beattie says.

Do you feel compelled to help people with their problems? We are meant to be broken bread and poured out wine. I am not talking about becoming an enabler of another person who is in very unacceptable behavior, such as the use of drugs or alcohol. I realize that the word "co-dependency" is often used in this context.

But it seems to me that there are some people out there who are carrying this thing so far that it is likely to confuse Christians. That's why I mention it here. "Do you feel safest when giving?" Melody Beattie asks. "Maybe you are co-dependent." But then, of course, Jesus said it is more blessed to give than to receive, and He came to lay down His life to give His life for us. And we, in our turn, are to lay down our lives for each other.

Sacrificial love is a part of a woman's work. And if we do it in company with Jesus Christ, pulling the bandy of the will of God, He will steer us clear of the pitfalls of co-dependency. May God give you His wisdom in knowing how to take that yoke upon you and learn of Him.

Lisa Barry: That's definitely something I want to learn. It's easy for me to assume that my children will grow up the same whether I pray for them or not. But nothing could be farther from the truth. And Satan would like nothing more than to lead us to believe that our prayers are just benevolent acts that have no real power.

So if you're like me and have resisted putting prayer at the top of your priority list, let's both change our strategies today. And if you need a little encouragement to that end, why not purchase a copy of the tape series you've been listening to? The series title you'll want to ask for is A WOMAN'S WORK.

You might also be helped by a book entitled THE CHRISTIAN'S GUIDE TO WORKING FROM HOME. If you've considered a home-based business but didn't know where to begin, you'll love this book.

For more information on how to purchase either of these resources, feel free to call us at 1-800-759-4JOY. Our post office address is Gateway To Joy, Box 82500, Lincoln, Nebraska, 68501. Today's program has been a production of Back to the Bible.

Have you ever wondered where you can hear or read what was on the program if you happened to miss it? Well, our website contains both audio and written versions of each day's broadcast. So why not visit it? Our address on the World Wide Web is gatewaytojoy.org.

Be with us tomorrow when we'll learn more about building a strong, safe haven for our families. That's all coming up on the next edition of Gateway To Joy.