Suffering is Not for Nothing: Question & Answer

has anyone a question this gentleman right here did you spend with the indians following today okay how many years did i spend with the indians following the death of jim elliott he died in 56 i came back to the states in 63 so i was there seven years that was not all with the alca indians the ones who killed him i spent two years with them i spent about eight years all together with quicho indians and i worked with another tribe too another question sir back there how do you avoid i'm not sure how to create a question how do you avoid uh slipping into despair after a long term suffering you know where you pray you ask god for healing or changing the circumstances and they don't change how do you handle that well the first chapter excuse me yes how do i handle suffering after a long period i guess the word was depression or despair after a long period of suffering when god doesn't seem to be changing the situation i would think of the first chapter of james where he says when all kinds of trials and temptations come into your lives my brothers don't resent them as intruders but welcome them as friends realize that they come to test your faith and to produce in you the quality of endurance but then he says this important thing he says let the process go on and god does let the process go on remember that israel had to go through that wilderness daniel had to go into the lion's den shadrach meshach and abednego had to go into the furnace and sometimes the furnace lasts a long time so the principles that i've been trying to articulate here would be exactly what i would say i don't know a better therapy for depression and despair and grief itself then this formula from isaiah 58 verse 10 start pouring yourself out for somebody else because there are a lot of people in much worse shape than you are you cannot do it alone it's only by the grace of god and he will help you when you start doing that something amazing happens this principle of exchange starts to go into operation and as he promises here then you will be satisfied your own hungers your own needs will be met when you start meeting somebody else's lady back do you think he here for suffering okay the question is uh you haven't brought up satan at all what part does he play in suffering well i did bring him up very briefly at one point but i admit very briefly in the passage describing paul's thorn in the flesh he says that it was not only a gift given to him to prevent spiritual pride which clearly means that it had to be a gift from god but he said it was also a messenger of satan given to buffet him so that has settled my mind forever in trying to figure out whether something that comes to me is from god or from satan because we live in a fallen world in which satan is the prince of the power of the heir and he apparently has tremendous authority because he offered to jesus all the kingdoms of the world now that temptation would have no meaning whatsoever if satan had not had the power to do that so there is tremendous lot of mystery here in who's in charge of what but there's a verse in the last part of the 14th chapter of john where jesus says the prince of this world is on his way he has no rights over me but the world must be shown that i love the father and will do exactly what he says he was referring of course to his coming crucifixion satan had a lot to do with the crucifixion it says that jesus was put in the hands of evil men and nailed to a cross the worst thing that ever happened but god had the best things that ever happened in mind so that's always the way it is we are at the mercy of satan up to a point but he has no rights over us any more than he had over job any more than he has over jesus and yet god gives him permission we can't plumb the mysteries but we can recognize that we belong to god and greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world another question this lady did i lose friends okay the question is in your sufferings did you lose friends who could not cope with what was the last word there could not cope with my suffering and my losses i don't think i did i i think i'd have to say no to that questions i certainly don't remember losing correct friends to those friends my husband seems to want to clarify that yeah who cannot face the suffering you were going through and sort of avoided okay one aspect of anyone who is bereaved i suppose experiences the fact that their friends many of their friends sort of fade away into the woodwork because they don't know what to do they don't know how to respond to this has this got something to do with your question okay and i come to think about it i do remember people actually uh avoiding me and i i didn't take it hardly i took it simply that that they did not know how to respond and this brings to mind a friend of mine who whom i mentioned earlier she's totally quadriplegic and when she was paraplegic had not yet reached that stage of quadriplegic she was in a wheelchair and she said to me one time she said you know people really don't care they don't help you they don't do anything they sort of avoid anybody in a wheelchair and i said jan please don't think it's that they don't care a lot of people care but they don't they really are not sure what they're supposed to do and i think we've all had this difficulty of knowing how to respond and nate saint the pilot who was in ecuador and was killed along with my husband he was a very remarkable man in a lot of ways and one thing that he taught me years ago he said if a man has a very obvious scar or handicap he said i always make it a practice to ask him about it and that gives him a chance to tell me something that i need to learn and i have tried to make that a practice too and i so far i've never had anybody offended by it as far as i know but we are often at a loss and i would say that the proper response is to let that person know if you can if you know the person and you can just say look i really would like to talk about my husband you don't have to try to get me off the subject most of my friends tried to change the subject every time and i said look when a person has been bereaved usually the most important thing they want to talk about is that so if you'll listen lars did you have something to say again oh you keep putting your hand up you have a question let's you can ask your wife at home [Laughter] yes in giving up something or accepting something sometimes the emotions or feelings don't seem to go along or we even have them to continue with us so we can't get rid of them and i thought maybe in your situation how did you handle some of your feelings well as i've tried to make oh here i have to i'm sorry keep forgetting to repeat the question in my sufferings my troubles how did i handle my feelings i've tried to make it as plain as i can that i can't handle bad emotions i can't handle loneliness i can't handle despair and discouragement so it becomes material for sacrifice it's something which i literally have to offer to god and if you want me to give you my own very simple formula and it's not the way you have to do it but it has been of a great help to me to to just get alone somewhere get down on my knees and say lord you know how i'm feeling about this thing whatever it is you get a piece of bad news this happened to me a couple of years ago it was so bad that i felt i could not cope so i just went into a room alone got down on my knees and i put that thing invisibly in my hands and i just lifted up my hands to the lord and i said here is this thing lord i can't do anything with this myself you take it and transfigure it for my blessing and for the good of others now i want to make it clear and i think this is the question that lars is getting at that does not mean that god instantly whips that thing completely out of your life i had to come back again and again and again just as a widow for example every night of the rest of her life she has to go to bed alone every morning she wakes up alone all the little things that you do during the day when you realize as i did that i had really lived for a gym i had done everything for gym when nad died i'd done everything for ad and i'm doing things for lars now when that person is gone then there are a thousand reminders and each time i was stabbed to the heart with the reminders that was material for sacrifice so i offered up again in other words god may give me the same thing a thousand times to give back to him and he keeps exchanging it and giving it back to me and he is working in mysterious unseen ways which ultimately i think we're going to see just as the poem about the weaver tells he is at work and the day is going to come when he will unfold the pattern and it will be your responses that are going to make the difference there another question elizabeth more and more as you share i'm hearing how important it is to know god as a person what i would like to ask is can you give us practical ways in which we can pursue that goal of knowing god as a person thank you bonnie's question is give us practical ways in which we can know god as a person and the most practical book in the in the world is the bible and i can give you a verse from john 14 and then i'll try to bring it down to earth maybe if it's not practical enough to suit you it says in verse 21 john 14 the man who has received my commands and obeys them he it is who loves me and he who loves me will be loved by my father and i will love him and disclose myself to him in other words the knowledge of god is not an intellectual exercise it is the reward of obedience and i gave you the story of my friend terry who decided to obey god and honor her mother and instead of arguing and fussing and whining and howling and creating a scene when her mother said no you can't go she said okay now i don't know how to be any more practical than that very often young people college students high school students come to me and they say i really want to do the will of god i really want to know god now how do you get there you know they think i'm way up here on some kind of a pedestal that they've got to struggle to get to and how did i get there and i try to show them that i'm still right down here in kindergarten struggling the same way they are but you do the next thing that god is telling you to do and i say to them are you a student the answer is yes okay i say i can tell you what the will of god for a student is it's to study now they didn't want to hear that they want me to tell them something spiritual and i say look quit plagiarizing quit cheating quit putting off till the night before the exam you're studying write the paper do the assignment clean your room be nice to your roommate that's how you get to know god you do it for his sake and if they say to me well but i need to know which college to go to and i've been asking god for guidance about this and i have to know by next march and this is october and i don't know yet so how am i going to know and my answer usually is god has something for you to do in october that doesn't look to you as though it has anything to do with next march it might be write a letter to your mother this week it might be make an apology to your roommate you see that's i think what jesus is talking about right here the one who does what i say will be loved by my father and i will love him and disclose myself to him another verse in the next chapter jesus said if you heed my commands you will dwell in my love now what is dwelling in his love if it's not learning to know god you will dwell in my love as i have heeded my father's commands and dwell in his love what was the secret of the union between the son and the father obedience obedience obedience the most practical way to get to know god the only way as far as i know trust and obey for there's what does it say no other way one minute that's got to be a short their one under the leading of the holy spirit trying to become broken bread and poured out wine they become very very exhausted what is the remedy sometimes when people are trying to be obedient to god and become broken bread and poured out wine they become very very exhausted what is the remedy our pattern is jesus again he was a very busy man and yet he worked he moved in perfect serenity from one thing to the next and i think the secret of the peace that he gives is to do the work that god has given us to do and that's of course the tension that you and i have to deal with i constantly pray lord thy list be done i cannot do everything that's on my list or on everybody else's and i don't believe it's god's will for us to be totally exhausted and burned out i hate that word burnout we are to do the work of god without haste and without sloth and only god can help us to sort out what is his will and what is ours or somebody else's god bless you you

Channel: The Elisabeth Elliot Foundation

Views: 2,599

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Length: 17min 0sec (1020 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 16 2021