Suffering Is Never for Nothing

by Elisabeth Elliot

There’s an old prayer of thanksgiving at the offering time. It goes like this, “All things come of thee, O Lord and of thine own have we given thee.” 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.

The verse that came to me in those hours of fear was a broken and a contrite heart, I will not despise. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, I will not despise. I’m sure some of you have a broken spirit, a broken heart. God will not despise that offering if that’s all you have to offer (Ps. 51:17 kjv, author paraphrase).

I don’t know who I’m talking to but I’m sure that there are some of you who would be saying, what is the good of my offering for such a crowd. You’re telling me that I have something that is going to matter for the life of the world? And I say, yes, that’s what I’m telling you. Because God takes a widow with nothing, God takes a little boy’s lunch and He turns that into something for the good of the world because that individual let it go.

dandelion? It means everything in the world because love transforms it. That’s what this is about. Suffering and love are inextricably bound up together. And love invariably means sacrifice.

What have you got in your hand to give to Him? Is it a gift that you recognize as a gift, a talent for example? Is it the willingness to be a mother and to take the criticism of the women who say that a woman who’s got half a brain will put her children in somebody else’s care and get out and do something “fulfilling”? Is it the willingness to take the flack from the rest of the world about something that you’ve decided to do for Jesus’ sake? Is it the willingness to be unrecognized, unappreciated?

service. But the word ministry just means service. And service is a part of our offering to God.

medals. They are moments to be offered to Jesus. Do the next thing.

to obey is better than sacrifice. It’s no good singing “Jesus Loves Me” when you’re disobeying your mother, and the highest form of worship is obedience. What do I have to offer to God that is more important than my obedience? There’s a great lesson on this in the book of Ezekiel, hidden back in the 24th chapter, beginning in verse 16. God told the son of man, “I take away from you the desire of your eyes with one stroke; yet you shall neither mourn nor weep, nor shall your tears run down. Sigh in silence, make no mourning for the dead; bind your turban on your head, and put your sandals on your feet; do not cover your lips, and do not eat man’s bread of sorrow” (Ezek. 24:16–17 nkjv). In other words, forget all the ritual signs of mourning. And Ezekiel replies this, “So I spoke to the people in the morning, and at evening my wife died; and the next morning I did as I was commanded” (Ezek. 24:18 nkjv). Now that’s a very short description of some pretty important things! In the evening my wife died, and the next morning I did as I was commanded.

Those who have most profoundly influenced my life are without exception people who have suffered because it has been in that very suffering that God has refined the gold, tempered the steel, molded the pot, broken the bread and made that person into something that feeds a multitude—of whom I have been one of the beneficiaries.

Ugo Bassi said this, “Measure your life by loss and not by gain, not by the wine drunk, but by the wine poured forth. For love’s strength standeth in love’s sacrifice, and he that suffereth most hath most to give.”21

Isaiah 58:10–11, “If you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday. And the Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your desire with good things, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters fail not” (rsv).

But I love the word transfiguration because it implies an aspect of glory that is not always implied in the word transformation.

And this verse from Isaiah speaks of pouring yourself out for the hungry and receiving, in exchange, the satisfaction of your own needs, strength of limb. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.

If we receive the things that God wants to give us, if we thank Him for them and if we make those things an offering back to God, then this is what’s going to happen—transfiguration, the great principle of exchange that is the central principle of the Christian faith—the cross. We know that the cross does not exempt us from suffering. In fact, the cross is a symbol of suffering. In fact, Jesus said you must take up your cross.

He told us these things so that when they do happen, our faith in Him will not be shaken. If your faith rests in your idea of how God is supposed to answer your prayers, your idea of heaven here on earth or pie in the sky or whatever, then that kind of faith is very shaky and is bound to be demolished when the storms of life hit it. But if your faith rests on the character of Him who is the eternal I AM, then that kind of faith is rugged and will endure.

The first principle is that of the cross: Life comes out of death. I bring God my sorrows and He gives me His joy. I bring Him my losses and He gives me His gains. I bring Him my sins, He gives me His righteousness. I bring Him my deaths and He gives me His life. But the only reason God can give me His life is because He gave me His death.

So that is the principle of exchange. I give Him my deaths and He gives me His life. My sorrows, He gives me joy. My losses, He gives me His gains. This is the great principle of the cross.

And I think of the words that my first husband, Jim Elliot, wrote when he was twenty-two years old. “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

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.

There is, in fact, no redemptive work done anywhere without suffering. And God calls us to stand alongside Him, to offer our sufferings to Him for His transfiguration and to fill up in our poor human flesh. If I’m not given the privilege of being crucified, if I’m not given the privilege of being martyred in some way, some literal way for God, I am given the privilege of offering up to Him whatever He has given to me. I offer to Him all that I am, all that I have, all that I do and all that I suffer for His transformation, transfiguration, exchange for the life of the world. That is what it’s all about.

In closing, I want to give you a poem written by Grant Colfax Tuller. “My life is but a weaving between my Lord and me; I do not choose the colors, He worketh steadily. Oft times He weaveth sorrow and I, in foolish pride, forget He sees the upper, and I the under side. Not till the loom is silent and the shuttles cease to fly, shall God unroll the canvas and explain the reason why. The dark threads are as needful in the Weaver’s skillful hand, as the threads of gold and silver in the pattern He has planned.”24 Everything that happens fits into a pattern for good. Suffering is never for nothing. There is, in fact, no redemptive work done anywhere without suffering.