“Should we accept only good things from the hand of God and never anything bad?”
-Job 2:10b
We have been studying the Book of Job on Wednesday nights. I ran across these thoughts from Elizabeth Elliot. Elizabeth and her husband Jim went to the jungles of Ecuador to reach Auca Indians. Jim was killed by the tribesmen.
Elizabeth and her daughter eventually returned to the same people who killed her husband and reached them with the gospel.
She wrote about Acceptance vs. Resignation based on on these experiences:
Only in acceptance lies peace, not in resignation nor in busyness.
Resignation is surrender to fate.
Acceptance is surrender to God.
Resignation lies down quietly in an empty universe.
Acceptance rises up to meet the God who fills that universe with purpose and destiny.
Resignation says, “I can’t.”
Acceptance says, “God can!”
Resignation says, “It’s all over for me.”
Acceptance asks, “Now that I am here, what’s next, Lord?” Resignation says, “What a waste.”
Acceptance asks, “In what redemptive way will You use this mess, Lord?”
This poem was apparently published in a book entitled Lord, if Ever I Needed You It’s Now (by Creath Davis). Elizabeth Elliot went on to write Through the Gates of Splendor and other well-known Christian books.
