Suffering Is Never for Nothing

by Elisabeth Elliot

And to be quite honest, as I travel around and meet all kinds and varieties of Christians, I’m dismayed to notice that very often there doesn’t seem to be any difference in the way they live and the way the rest of the world lives, in the way they respond to the experiences of their lives and the way the world would respond.

Two things that certainly ought to distinguish you and me and everyone who calls himself a Christian are acceptance and gratitude.

But when we’re talking about the gifts of God, we’re talking about gifts that come from One who knows exactly what we need even though it is not necessarily to our tastes and preferences. And He gives us everything that is appropriate to the job that He wants us to do. And so, understanding that, then we can say yes, Lord. I’ll take it. It would not have been my choice but knowing You love me, I will receive it and I understand that someday I’m going to understand the necessity for this thing. So I accept it. And then I can even go the step beyond and say thank You.

How to deal with suffering of any kind. Number one, I wrote, “Recognize it.” Number two, “Accept it.” Number three, “Offer it to God as a sacrifice.” And number four, “Offer yourself with it.”

I don’t think I need to thank God for the cancer or for the murder. But I do need to thank God that in the midst of that very situation the world was still in His hands.

It is in these very situations which are so painful—having what you don’t want, wanting with all your heart something that you don’t have—that thanksgiving can prepare the way for God to show us His Salvation.

We receive it from Him. We accept it in our hands. We say thank You. And then we offer it back. This is the logical sequence of the things which I have been talking about. Everything is a gift. Everything is meant to be offered back.

Again and again, I’ve had people say to me, how do you handle loneliness? And I say that I can’t handle loneliness. They ask, “Well didn’t you spend a lot of time alone in the jungle?” I inevitably reply, “Yes, I did. I spent a good many more years alone than I did married.” They return, “Well how did you handle it?” To which I reply, “I didn’t. I couldn’t. I have to turn it over to Somebody who can handle it.” In other words, my loneliness became my offering.

And so if God doesn’t always remove the feeling of loneliness, it is in order that every minute of every day, perhaps, I have something to offer up to Him and say, “Lord, here it is. I can’t handle this.”

to obey is better than sacrifice.

What do I have to offer to God that is more important than my obedience?

Everything that you and I eat means that something has died in some way. Even an egg, even a glass of milk, the chicken and the cow have not died, but they have given life, haven’t they? And practically everything else on the table tells us that something has died, whether it’s corns of wheat or animals. So life comes out of death.

Her perspective was transfigured. And she, herself, was transfigured for the benefit of the rest of us. We were given a visible sign in the face of Corrie Ten Boom of an invisible reality—another country, another level, another perspective.

Everything that happens fits into a pattern for good. Suffering is never for nothing.