Lisa Barry: When you hear Christian leaders and speakers, do you assume they have met with success at every turn? Do you sometimes wonder if they can even relate to you? After all, there they are in the limelight, so talented in their speaking and so eloquent, could they possibly understand your difficult life?

Well, if success at every turn were the criteria for success, then Elisabeth Elliot would not be a speaker today. She has experienced some of life's most harrowing trials, but has learned through it all a very important lesson. We'll learn what that lesson is today, so I hope you can stay with us. Let's head back now to "The Cove," where Elisabeth is speaking to a group on acceptance. Let's get started.

Elisabeth Elliot: If you want to be My disciple, number one"?which is the most difficult of all?"deny yourself." We get all twitchy about this word "denial" nowadays, because psychologists are going to tell us that if we?re in denial, it?s very serious.

Well, Jesus made it crystal clear right at the beginning. He just said, "If you want to be My disciple, then you?ve got to deny yourself. Give up your right to yourself. Let go. Just say, ?Lord, anything You say. Here I am, all of me for You forever. Do anything You want with me.?"

Hmmm. But that?s scary, isn?t it? Is that what I?m really supposed to do? Yes, that?s what you?re really supposed to do if you want to follow Him, if you want to be His disciple. How bad do we want to?

The second condition?take up the cross. In what form, ladies and gentlemen, do you expect the cross to be presented to you? Do you think God is going to give you something dramatic to do? Something heroic? Something that the world is going to hear about? Something you could write books about? No, not very likely.

Every day I think God gives us the opportunity to give up our right to ourselves and take up the cross. Now what is this cross? Well, John H. Newman said, "It is the continual daily practice of small duties which are distasteful to you." Can you think of anything which is a small duty which is distasteful to you?

I remember a commercial that used to come on. It just made so angry. This woman would say, "If there?s one thing I hate, it?s cleaning toilets. You know what? I don?t do it anymore." Then she goes on to talk about this blue stuff that you put in the tank. I don?t have anything against the blue stuff that you put in the tank, but it was that attitude of hating something that you have to do. Who of us doesn?t have things we have to do, like it or not? Will you do them for Jesus? Will you accept the cross, in whatever form it is presented? The continual practice of small duties which are distasteful to you. That?ll do it.

Well, you know about the next big blow in my life. After Jim and I were married, we just thought, "Well, now, isn?t this wonderful? Maybe we have fifty years together." I remember coming out of the wedding ceremony and thinking, "Till death us do part. Isn?t that wonderful? That?s way down the road." Well, it was 27 months and Jim died.

Of course, I was left on a jungle station alone. I was carried through day by day by a very simple principle, which my mother had taught me and also the headmistress of the boarding school that I attended back in the 1940?s. "Do the next thing." It is the most calming, simplifying principle in my life. "Do the next thing."

Well, Valerie called me one morning in tears. She said, "Mama, I don?t know what the next thing is." Well, with a family of eight children, I thought, "She knows a whole lot more about troubles like this than I do." But I didn?t have anything else to tell her, except just "Whatever the Lord brings into your mind, why, just go ahead and do that." She has told me since that many times that?s exactly what she does. It looks at though she has got eight things that have to be done all at the same time, but just do the next thing.

Well, then after my mother died, I came across a little red notebook that she always kept along with her Bible. Every morning after breakfast and after we had gone off to school and my father to work, she would go and sit in her little rocking chair beside the sewing table with this little red notebook and her Bible. It is full of treasures. I now keep it beside my chair and read it almost every day?the quotations and things.

This is what I found in there: "At an old English parsonage down by the sea, there came in the twilight a message to me. Its quaint Saxon legend deeply engraven that hath, as it seems to me, teaching from heaven. And all through the hours the quiet words ring like a low inspiration, ?Do the next thing.?

Many a questioning, many a fear, many a doubt hath its quieting here. Moment by moment, let down from heaven, time, opportunity, guidance are given. Fear not tomorrows, child of the King, trust that with Jesus, do the next thing.

Do it immediately, do it with prayer, do it reliantly, casting all care. Do it with reverence, tracing His hand, who placed it before thee with earnest command. Stayed on omnipotence, safe ?neath His wing, leave all resultings"?say it with me?"do the next thing."

Now 55 of you are going to come up and say, "Where can I get a copy of that?" Gateway to Joy, Box 82500, Lincoln, Nebraska, 68501. Ask for "Do the Next Thing" and they will be happy to send you one.

Okay. After Jim?s death, I had plenty of work to do. Bags of mail. Lots of sympathetic Indians. Routines to do. Trying to do all the stuff that Jim and I had done together, which of course was not possible.

But about six weeks after he died, I received a letter from my mother-in-law, full of fears. She was asking me?and she herself was a chiropractor and a very wise woman. She thought that very likely I was repressing my real feelings and that I was going to eventually crack. She thought perhaps it might be well if I came back to the States for a while.

Well, I was in a quandary. How could I leave the station where there was no missionary? Was she right? Was I being foolish? Did I have my head in the clouds? I wondered if there really is such a thing as peace which passes understanding.

I came to the conclusion that there is such a thing. I tried to write as gracious a letter as I could to her and try to allay her fears that things were going fine. The Lord was helping me. I had to believe that God can fulfill His Word. Either He can or He can?t.

Now there were times of course when the enemy came in like a flood. But again and again, I would go back to the wonderful words that He had given me from Isaiah 43: "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon you: for I am the Lord your God."

I began simply doing the next thing. When the enemy comes in like a flood, the Scripture says, "The Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him." I love that verse. When the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him."

The basis of my faith is Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever. He is not going to change. He wants to change us. He wants to make Himself so real, so present to us that we can never again doubt that He does know what He is doing.

The very same day that I got my mother-in-law?s upsetting letter, I got in the mail the letter from Amy Carmichael?s work in South India. There is a wonderful letter that they send out three or four times a year called "Dust of Gold." It?s just filled with gems of wisdom and always there is a poem by Amy Carmichael on the cover. That particular cover had these words: "When stormy winds against us break, ?stablish and reinforce our will. O hear us for Thine own name?s sake; hold us in strength and hold us still. Still as the faithful mountains stand, through long silent years of stress; so would we wait at Thy right hand in quietness and steadfastness."

Now those lines?they sound pretty brave and strong, don?t they? But listen to this. This is the last stanza. "But not of us this strength, O Lord, and not of us this constancy. Our trust is Thine own eternal Word; Thy presence, our security."

Acceptance is "yes, Lord. I don?t understand it. I don?t like it. I would never have asked for it. But here I am, all of me for You forever. Do anything You want with me." That is what Mary said, wasn?t it? In effect, when Mary was given a staggering piece of news that she was to become the mother of the Son of God, she said, "Behold, the handmaiden of the Lord. Be it unto me according to Thy word" or "Let it happen as you say."

I don?t know anybody in this room very well, except my daughter and my husband. So I don?t know what?s going on in your mind and in your heart and in your life. But I have a strong hunch that some of you are refusing to accept something that you cannot change. Think about it. Acceptance. In acceptance lies peace?another Amy Carmichael maxim. In acceptance lies peace.

In the middle of the night, I woke up thinking of a hymn that I didn?t have down in my notes. It?s "Crown Him with Many Crowns." I think it has eight stanzas. Of course, most of the hymnbooks leave out three or four of them. To me, this is the most beautiful of the stanzas of that hymn.

"Crown Him the Lord of years, the potentate of time, Creator of the rolling spheres, ineffably sublime." When you think of the Creator of the rolling spheres and the Potentate of time, those are staggering concepts that none of us can really completely absorb. But the next line says, "Who every grief hath known that wrings the human breast and takes and bears them for His own that all in Him might rest."

Lisa Barry: And with those words, we need to wrap things up for today. If you'd like to hear these talks again, I'm happy to tell you this three-week series has been squeezed onto two cassettes. The title you'll want to ask for is "Crowned Because He Suffered."

The cost is $11.50. You can send that, along with your request, Gateway to Joy, Box 82500, Lincoln, Nebraska, 68501. Or call toll-free: 1-800-759-4JOY. Or dial up our Web site at gatewaytojoy.org. You can order books, tapes, find program transcripts, upcoming program topics and much more. That address again is gatewaytojoy.org. Today?s program has been a production of Back to the Bible and is supported by the gifts of people like you.

Tomorrow Elisabeth talks again about how to survive life?s small and large setbacks. It?s all coming up next time on Gateway to Joy.