From Elisabeth Elliot's Gateway to Joy program archives:

I read to you yesterday a letter from a mother who was told when her baby was one day old that he had had a brain hemorrhage. And she had no idea whether he was going to be all right, but God gave her peace. She felt that she was just enfolded in those everlasting arms.

And that same lady went on to tell us about some far less daunting troubles. She said when she began to learn to accept and to thank the Lord for the things which cut across her natural desires, that God gave her peace even in the little things.

She said, "I even learned to apply this to getting up at night with my boys. Instead of stumbling grumpily out of bed, I could stop and say, 'Lord, Your will be done,' and take care of their needs in peace and calmness. And I want to share an episode with my mother-in-law," she says. "She has always been a very domineering, outspoken person--the kind of person I usually avoid, especially because I have always had a problem with self-esteem. We used to call it an inferiority complex. I always had fears of not measuring up, of failing, and I covered this up with a veneer of never admitting that I couldn't do something or didn't know how to do it.

Well, at one point I asked God to give me love for my mother-in-law. He responded by letting me spend a week with her while she was recovering from a fall. The first day she constantly told me everything to do and criticized everything I did. That night I went to bed churning inside and had a long argument with God. But finally I gave in and I said, 'All right. I will allow her to totally boss me around, to treat me as if I know nothing. I will ask her every little detail.' And then, guess what? I had peace."

You know, these principles that I'm trying to explain again and again on this program Gateway To Joy, they apply just as much to the tiny little things as they do to the big things. All of them are purposeful. The serious and painful events, the trivial disappointments, they are purposeful. They are God's purposeful arrangements for our fulfillment. They are, in fact, if we will accept them, our gateway to joy. That's right. These little things, these little troubles, can be our gateway to joy.

Blaise Pascal, author of THE PENSEES, was born in Clermont, France in 1623. His mother died when he was three years old. He was educated by his father, who was a government official. And he was exceedingly precocious, to the point of actually damaging his health by studying so hard. He became one of the greatest physicists and mathematicians of all time.

When he was 31 he had a mystical experience while reading the 17th chapter of John, feeling the emptiness of his life suddenly filled with the presence of God. He called this his second conversion--so crucial that he wrote notes about it which he sewed into the lining of his coat. It was found in the coat he was wearing when he died.

The notes in part were these: "The year of grace, 1654, Monday the 23rd of November, from about half past ten at night to about half an hour after midnight. Fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob. Not of philosophers and scholars. Certitude. Heartfelt joy. Peace. God of Jesus Christ. God of Jesus Christ. My God and Your God. Your God shall be my God. The world forgotten, everything except God. Joy. Joy. Joy. Jesus Christ. I am separated from Him for, I have shunned Him, denied Him, crucified Him. May I never be separated from Him. He can only be kept by the ways taught in the Gospel. Complete and sweet renunciation. Total submission to Jesus Christ and to my Director. Everlasting joy in return for one day's striving upon earth. I will not neglect Your Word."

And that's the end of those notes that were found sewed into the lining of his coat. And this man Pascal endured many different kinds of suffering in his life. During the last six months, his physical suffering was really intense. But he prayed that he might endure it like a Christian. "Sick as I am," he prayed, "may I glorify You in my sufferings."

And one of the 15 prayers that he wrote asking God to use his sickness for His glory is this one: "Take from me, O Lord, that self-pity which love of myself so readily produces and from the frustration of not succeeding in the world as I would naturally desire. For these have no regard for Your glory.

Rather, create in me a sorrow that is conformable to Your own. Let my pains rather express the happy condition of my conversion and salvation. Let me no longer wish for health or life, but to spend it and end it for You, with You, in You. I pray neither for health nor for sickness, life or death; rather, I pray that You will dispose of my health, my sickness, my life, my death for Your glory, for my salvation, for the usefulness to Your church and Your saints, among whom I hope to be numbered. You alone know what is expedient for me. You are the sovereign Master. Do whatever pleases You. Give me or take away from me. Conform my will to Yours and grant that with humble and perfect submission, and in holy confidence, I may dispose myself utterly to You. May I receive the orders of Your everlasting provident care. May I equally adore anything that comes from You."

Just yesterday I heard two horrifying stories, one of a minister (who was also a missionary) guilty of blatant, deliberate, prolonged sexual sin. It was not with that man that I had to do. It was the suffering of his wife. The other was a story of another missionary. The wife had had to relinquish all hopes for a godly home, for secure children, and for strong, fatherly examples.

That's pain, isn't it? Those of you who have been there know that that is pain. What do I know of such pain? Nothing. I've never been abandoned by my husband. I've never had a husband who was guilty of blatant, deliberate, prolonged sexual sin. I've never been divorced. I don't know that kind of pain.

But I do learn from Hebrews 12 that each of us has a race to run. The writer says, "Surrounded as we are by these ranks of witnesses [and he's speaking of all the heroes of the faith listed in Hebrews 11], let us strip off everything that hinders us, as well as the sin which dogs our feet, and let us run the race that we have to run with patience, our eyes fixed on Jesus, the source and the goal of our faith. For He Himself endured a cross and thought nothing of its shame because of the joy He knew would follow His suffering."

You see, I always try to bring in, whenever we talk about these heavy things like suffering and death and pain and divorce and sin, that joy is promised when we endure the cross. Jesus endured the cross, thought nothing of its shame because of the joy He knew would follow His suffering. And He is now seated at the right hand of God's throne.

Think constantly of Him, enduring all that sinful men could say against Him, and you will not lose your purpose or your courage. Each of us has a race to run of some kind. You have one kind; I have another. But we all have the same Master, the source and the goal of our faith, the pioneer and the perfecter, Jesus Christ. We have to run that race with our eyes fixed on Him.

The runner back in those days was stripped, you know. People who ran relays and competed were actually naked. So he says, ''Let us strip off everything that hinders us." The runner has a clearly defined goal. He's given strength for his particular race, according to this passage. "And you will be given strength to let go of all that hinders you." All the weights.

And some of those weights, don't forget, are the good things that you'd like to take along. Things that there's nothing wrong in, and yet you can't run the race that Jesus has given you to run and lug along a lot of baggage. So you've got to let go and fix your eyes on the One who gave us everything.

The writer of the Hebrew goes on and says, ''After all, your fight against sin has not yet meant the shedding of blood, and you have perhaps lost sight of that piece of advice which reminds you of your sonship in God. My son, regard not lightly the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art reproved by Him. For whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth."

Remember that. There's one of the reasons why bad things happen to good people. The Lord loves you. He has to chasten you, to purify you, and "He scourgeth every son whom He receiveth."