Valerie Shepard: And I'm more and more aware as I grow in the Lord that we are to say to the Lord, "Kill it. Kill it, Lord, that hideous idol called self." We love our own way and ourselves much more than we love God.

Lisa Barry: That was the voice of Valerie Shepard, Elisabeth Elliot's daughter. I have to admit, those are convicting words for me, too. How many times have I criticized other drivers for tailgating me on the highway? But when I'm in a hurry, it's the slow drivers who are insensitive! It's the age-old battle of the old man fighting it out with the new man. Which one has been winning in your life? All this week, Valerie will be joining Elisabeth in an effort to help us prepare for the new year. How? By nipping some of our problem areas early. And maybe once we get those in shape, the rest will come more easily. I hope you can stay with us for a 15-minute spiritual check-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, talking today with my daughter, Valerie Shepard, on what subject, Valerie?

Valerie Shepard: That hideous idol called self.

Elisabeth Elliot: That hideous idol. Well, tell us about that.

Valerie Shepard: It was in the first five or six years of my marriage and family life that I began to read Amy Carmichael's books. Throughout her books, she continually teaches that "I", meaning me, myself and I, must be sequestered, must be killed, must be gotten rid of. She challenged me through her books to recognize how much in my conversations with other people I wanted the things that I did, the things that I felt, the things that I wanted to be known to others. I'm more and more aware as I grow in the Lord that we are to say to the Lord, "Kill it. Kill it, Lord, that hideous idol called self." We love our own way and ourselves much more than we love God.

Janet Erskin Stewart, who is one of your spiritual mothers, wrote, "If we get our own way, we nurse a hideous idol called self. But if we give up our own way, we get God."

Elisabeth Elliot: Repeat that, will you, Val?

Valerie Shepard: Okay. "If we get our own way, we nurse a hideous idol called self. But if we give up our way, we get God."

Elisabeth Elliot: You must have many occasions in your family for teaching people to give up their own way. Can you give us an example or two?

Valerie Shepard: Just a small one at the table, teaching manners. The children want to feed themselves first and they must consider the people at the end of our table, the people next to them, that food must be passed. One of our rules is that we cannot eat until everybody has what they ought to have on their plates. We just can't get over how continually they want to feed themselves first. If they've got all that they want, then they're ready to chow down. So they're nursing that hideous idol to get what they want first and to grab for it first and not to think of the person next to them. But if they're learning to think of the person-and we have a large table, too, so we have to pass things. We can't all reach to get one thing at the table. There are ten of us sitting around the table when we're all together. But if we can teach them to think of the other person, then they're learning to think in God's ways and terms rather than their own terms.

Elisabeth Elliot: It's the ancient principle of the cross, "My life for yours." You have to explain to the little boy, "Pass the butter to Daddy first. Then help yourself." "Well, why should I pass the butter to Daddy first? I need butter, too." Well, this is a way of saying, "My life for yours." Of course, you don't try to instill the deep spiritual principle of the cross to that two-year-old right at the beginning, but that's where the foundation is laid. Think about other people. Be considerate. Be alert, aware. What do they need?

I remember when I was growing up we had a young girl living with us. She was probably 20 years old. She was a Bible school student and she was doing housemaid work in her spare time, living in our home. The poor lady was so shy that she didn't dare to ask for anything at the table. Of course, we were a fairly loud and boisterous family, although there were just three of us children at the time. The poor girl would sit there and gaze at the jam jar and sigh deeply. Of course, we kids recognized immediately that she was wanting the jam, but she didn't have the nerve to ask for it. So we in our wickedness and selfishness would just sit there and refuse to pass it until she asked. So she would be gasping for breath by the time she would manage to summon up sufficient courage to ask. But we ought not to wait till people ask. We should be willing to think, "What does he need? What would make him comfortable?"

Valerie Shepard: What would make the other person happy, instead of my own happiness first. Well, that hideous idol called self is subtle. It raises its ugly head in many different ways, whether it's "I want to sleep in this morning and it's so and so's turn to get up and do for the younger ones." Often husbands and wives play this game of "I got up during the night. It's your turn to go and do something or to change the diaper." I can't stand to see husbands and wives in someone else's home, recognizing that their baby needs to be changed and they both look at each other, saying, "It's your turn. I did it last." You know, that's not the right Spirit of Christ at all.

Of course, my father would be aghast, because he didn't believe men should change diapers, did he?

Elisabeth Elliot: I don't remember that, Val. Did I tell you that?

Valerie Shepard: Yes. In our culture in southern California, and I think it's becoming this way more and more in not necessarily Christian circles, but in America, that wives expect their

husbands to be just as adept to change diapers, give baths, feed babies and all that the wife does. They expect them to.

Elisabeth Elliot: And the wife is supposed to be able to change a tire just as well as her husband can change a diaper, is that right?

Valerie Shepard: I don't know many wives who do that, but it's expected for fathers to be very involved in the nitty gritty of taking care of babies. Not that they shouldn't. It's a good thing for fathers to be involved. But for a wife to expect it and demand it is wrong, I think.

Elisabeth Elliot: It seems a selfish attitude any time when you draw clear lines about, "Okay. This is your job and that is your job. I did it last and so you have to do it now."

Valerie Shepard: You can't do 50/50 in a marriage. To say that quote again, "If we give up our own way, we get God." If we learn to lay down our lives for others and just get up out of the chair and go do the thing that needs to be done, rather than hoping and waiting and demanding of someone else to do that thing, we are learning the Spirit of Christ.

In many of your talks, Mama, you talk about accepting what God has given you as your lot and your portion. It is a humbling thing to accept what God offers, rather than having an agenda and saying, "These are the things that I must do in my life or I must have in my life." When we have an agenda, that's a proud spirit against God's hand towards us.

Elisabeth Elliot: As though we know more about it than He does or know what would best satisfy us.

Valerie Shepard: Even if we can figure it out, as if we have all the wisdom and know-how and the knowledge to know what would be best this year and what would be best for next year and all that. I have another quote that I want to talk about that I think relates to this same thing. If we get our own way, we nurse a hideous idol called self. This is from Robert Murry McCheyne, who was a great Scottish preacher. He said, "It is more humbling for us to take what grace offers than to bewail our wants and our worthlessness."

In our struggling to be Christians, we would rather bewail how awful we are and how we don't have such and such and we couldn't possibly do that because we've had all these wrong things happen to us. We would rather tell everybody about how we're not worthy and we're worthless than we would take what grace offers to us. He has given us the particular husband or the particular mother-in-law or the particular children so that we can learn from those messengers His grace. But it is more humbling for us to just accept and take what He has given to us than it is for us to bewail and moan about all that we think we don't have.

Of course, when we think we don't have what we want to have, what we think we ought to have, we are being discontented with the state God has put us in. The antidote to discontentment is thankfulness and giving up our own way, our own ideas of what we think we have to have. We get God from that. We get His grace.

Elisabeth Elliot: Absolutely. Our deepest unrest is our, so far, unsatisfied hunger for God. Everything that we long for will ultimately be found in Him and nowhere else. I think anybody

who makes several million dollars in the lottery, the ones that I've read about or seen on television, I don't see happy faces as a result of that. What they thought was going to bring them happiness in many cases has brought them misery. I've heard some of them say, "I wish I'd never won it." All that can fill the heart that God made is the thing He made it for, which is the Christ life. Christ in me.

If I were actually to find myself, which is an exercise in futility it seems to me, but if I were to actually find myself, what would I be finding but a hollow shell that only God can fill? Who can cheer the heart like Jesus?

Valerie Shepard: I think of the phrase in the Bible that says, "The treasures and the riches of Christ. Oh, the depth of the wisdom and the knowledge of God." There's so much more to be found in Him than there is in earthly treasure.

Elisabeth Elliot: Peace that the world can never give is Christ's peace, and only Christ's. That was His parting gift to His disciples, wasn't it?

Valerie Shepard: "Peace I leave with you."

Elisabeth Elliot: Thank you for being with me, Val.

Valerie Shepard: Thank you.

Lisa Barry: Wouldn't it be nice to replace our selfishness with a quiet peace? I hope after today's talk we'll all be a little closer to that. And before we go, I want to encourage you to purchase a copy of our new calendar for 1998. It's just beautiful. You can also purchase a copy of this series with Val called PREPARING FOR THE NEW YEAR.

For information on how to get those resources, you can write to us at Gateway To Joy, Box 82500, Lincoln, Nebraska, 68501. Or call toll-free at 1-800-759-4JOY. That's 1-800-759-4569. I'd also like to remind you that our Web site has been recently updated, so make it a point to revisit or peek in for the first time. That's at www.gatewaytojoy.org. Gateway To Joy has been a production of Back to the Bible.

Tomorrow Val talks about the real meaning of repentance. Find out more next time on Gateway To Joy.