A Life Worth Living (Part 1) - Elisabeth Elliot

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A Life Worth Living (Part 1) - Elisabeth Elliot
A Life Worth Living (Part 2) - Elisabeth Elliot

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A Life Worth Living

Day 1 of 2

Guest: Elisabeth Elliott

From the series: What in Life is Worth Living For?

Bob: Fifty years ago this week, five American missionaries were martyred by Quechua Indians in rural Ecuador. Their deaths shook the world, but the legacy of their heroism continues to this day. One of the people most profoundly impacted by those events 50 years ago this week is the widow of one of the martyred missionaries, Elisabeth Elliott, the wife of Jim Elliott. As a young widow, she faced questions about the wisdom and the goodness of God, and she faced them head-on.

Elisabeth: Once upon a time, before you were born, there were, in Ecuador a tribe of so-called "savages." Not very much was known about these people. They were naked, they used stone tools, and they killed strangers. One of the questions that people ask me more frequently than any other is how have you handled bitterness? And usually they mean wasn't I bitter against God because of some of the things that have happened in my life. Suffering is a gift. Paul says, "Unto us it is given not only to believe but also to suffer."

Is it worth it? How many things can you think of that are worth suffering for? He is Lord of my life, and when I asked Him, at the age of 12, to be Lord of my life, I turned over to Him all the rights. There is nothing worth living for unless it's worth dying for.

Bob: And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Tuesday edition, Tuesday, January 3rd. I don't know about the rest of our listeners, but just hearing that voice …

Dennis: You're speaking of Elisabeth Elliott.

Bob: Yeah. She has always been somebody that – when I listen to her, I feel like I'm being encouraged and scolded kind of at the same time. You know what I mean? She just has that sense she's calling you to the highest that God would have for your life.

Dennis: She always did that in my life and, as you know, Bob, she has become a good friend of ours. Elisabeth and her husband, Lars – well, she's just a great friend. And what we wanted to do in featuring her on today's broadcast is take our listeners back some 50 years, because this Sunday, January 8th, is the 50th anniversary of the martyrdom of five young men who, by faith, flew back into the jungle to lead an uncivilized tribe of people who had never heard the name of Jesus Christ, and who ultimately were murdered on behalf of their faith. And Elisabeth Elliott, of course, is the widow of one of those men, Jim Elliott.

Bob: And as some listeners know, Elisabeth made the courageous decision many months after that, to go back into that jungle and to continue the work that her former husband had begun, and she helped to lead a number of those people to Christ including some of the men who had murdered her husband. And with that historical perspective in mind, we thought it would be good today for our listeners to hear some of her reflections on her husband, his faith, his character, on that time in her life, and on her interaction with the Waodani tribe in Ecuador back in the late 1950s.

Dennis: I think it's going to be a spiritual wheel alignment for some of our listeners who are right now walking through a valley of sorts. Maybe it's the valley of the shadow of death, maybe it's circumstances that can't be defined or explained or even understood after reading the Bible, but God can be trusted, and that's what you're going to hear from Elisabeth Elliott.

A number of years ago, we had the privilege of interviewing her talking to single people, interestingly enough, about the quest for love, and in that interview, Bob, as you and I talked to her, she started talking about how she viewed those circumstances surrounding the loss of her husband.

Elisabeth: In Deuteronomy 8, Moses is reviewing the history of the children of Israel, and he says, "He suffered you to hunger in order that He might know what was in your heart." And you remember that the children of Israel were wailing and screaming and complaining because they didn't have the leeks and onions and garlic and watermelons and fish that they'd had back in Egypt, and they were sick and tired of this stuff they got every day – manna. And it says that a company of strangers came in and said, in effect, "Is this all you've got here?" And so instead of the Lord removing the desire for leeks and onions and garlic, He caused them to hunger for this purpose – that He might know what was in their hearts, and I don't know any situation in which we are more likely to find out what is really in our hearts than where we have been deprived of something that we thought we should have. And, of course, I was deprived of my husband, Jim, and the Lord was saying to me, "Now I want you to glorify me as a single woman again, and I am giving you this gift, and I want you to fulfill this calling faithfully, gladly, and humbly."

I would just get down on my knees and just say, "Lord, you know what my natural feelings are about this but, Lord, I have surrendered them all to you long ago. It was when I was 12 years old that I prayed Betty Scott Stamm's prayer – "Lord, I give up all my own plans and purposes, all my own desires and hopes, and accept Thy will for my life in acceptance lieth peace," and I know that's true. It happened again when Ad [ph] was taken from me. He was prayed over, he was anointed, we had people coming from across the country telling me they had a word of knowledge that God wanted to heal Ad Leach. He died, and the Lord is saying, "So here is the gift of widowhood again."

Dennis: One of the themes of your books that seems to be in all of them is the call for the Christian to endure in the midst of suffering. You believe the Scripture calls us to remain faithful in the midst of circumstances that aren't working out to what we wish they would.

Elisabeth: Suffering is a gift, Dennis, it is a gift. Paul says, "Unto us it is given not only to believe but also to suffer," and Jesus referred to ...