Elisabeth Elliot: Witness to the impenetrable mystery of God

Elizabeth Elliot's memorial service at Wheaton College on July 26, 2015, was well over two hours long. I was one of the many in the audience that day. I cried throughout most of it. Deep tears of joy. 

I rejoiced that Elizabeth had finished her journey and was wrapped in the everlasting arms of her savior. She had finished well. I rejoiced in God's faithfulness. The promise of God to complete the work He had begun in her was sweetly affirmed. The afflictions of this life seemed slight in comparison to the eternal weight of glory.

During the service, Joni Eareckson Tada sang the hymn "For All the Saints Who From Their Labors Rest" - a wonderful tribute and statement of hope. It was encouraging to be reminded of this strong and faithful witness who lived and died serving him. 

I thought of a poem that was given to me the year before:  

Light after darkness.

Gain after loss.

Strength after weakness.

Crown after cross.

Sweet after bitter.

Hope after fears.

Home after wandering.

Praise after tears.

I rejoiced that I had the privilege to grow up under Elizabeth's teaching. Her books, lectures, and one personal letter were a formative influence. She taught me what it meant to be a woman. How to fight anxiety by "doing the next thing." How to surrender, rest, work, pray. From her I learned to say, "Behold I am the handmaiden of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word." 

All was well. 

Fast forward nine years.

I recently finished reading the new biographies of Elisabeth. I cried again. The former tears of joy seemed foolish. I now cried tears of confusion and anger. 

Both of the biographers, using recently released journals and letters, described a here before unknown sorrow that Elisabeth dealt with in the last decades of her life. Her thirty-eight year marriage to Lars was difficult. Troubled. Disturbing. Some have said manipulative and oppressive. Elisabeth told friends she knew she had made a mistake in marrying Lars on their way home from the wedding ceremony. Lars was at times charming and at other moments controlling. He was both demanding and suspicious of Elisabeth. When he took offense at something he did not approve of in Elisabeth’s words or actions, he might punish her with days of silence. It seemed that Elisabeth often took responsibility for his sinful attitudes. 

The internet is flooded with egalitarians who can not contain their delight to point out another complementarian hero who has fallen from her lofty pedestal. They view her marriage as abusive. They gleefully dismiss any truth in Elisabeth’s call for purity or submission and quickly point out the harm her teaching has caused.

When I could finally put words to my tears, I realized I was asking the age old question, “Why?”  Why did this happen, and why did God let this happen? Since God allowed this, would it not have been a good thing to have it exposed and dealt with in a wise way? Would that not have strengthened his church, maybe even given the church a road map to dealing with the “Me Too” issue that was soon to explode? Doesn’t God care about his name? Why would he not protect it from the mud slinging? Doesn’t God care about the confusion this is causing? 

One can ask “why?” never really wanting an answer. Wanting only to cast doubt, and to question legitimacy. There are other ”why?” questions that God listens to as we ask them. These come from a desire to understand how what is believed about the goodness, wisdom and power of God can be true in the presence of wrongdoing. 

It is for these questions that God in his goodness points to himself as the answer to all our questions. More than figuring out the ways of God, he wants us to grapple with who he is. More than understanding how all the pieces fit together, he wants us to know and trust his heart. 

Job learned this. After thirty-seven chapters of him and his friends asking demanding questions, God answers with questions of his own. Questions that demonstrate to Job how infinitesimally small he is in comparison to the great Creator, Almighty God, King of the universe. When he saw the glory of God at the center of everything, he stopped asking questions and worshiped.

In Paul’s great treatise on the gospel in Romans, he lays out a systematic argument by asking and answering a lot of questions he knew his readers would have. If I counted correctly, there are forty-three questions in chapters 6-11. Many of them are “why?” questions asked as “What then shall we say?” Today this question would sound more like: “That just can’t be. . . . what about . . . . or why . . .?” In the end, all these questions are silenced with questions that lead us to worship.

“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!

How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?

Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?

For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen." (Romans 11:33-36)

Many times in Elisabeth’s teachings and writings she referred to the impenetrable mystery of God. Sounds like it came straight from Romans chapter 11! As she grew older, she grew comfortable with the unknowns, the unexplained. She came to see mystery as something to be enjoyed, not solved. She knew the goodness of God’s character and was happy to rest there. 

To know God is to live contentedly in a world that doesn't make sense because you know He knows. He knows everything that is happening, why it is happening, and what will come about  as a result. He knows because he is sovereignly and providentially orchestrating all things It is not ours, the creature, to wonder at what the Creator is doing. We are to be content with knowing He is wise and good. 

Mine was not to question God’s working in Elisabeth’s life or the consequences that resulted. Mine was to say with Job, “Behold, I am of small account; what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth.” (Job 40:4). But  I realized that I was not not yet content to rest there. Sometimes we find it easier to trust God with the very big things that do not affect us personally in the day to day parts of our lives. However, when something touches us in a tender, guarded spot, we find it harder to embrace truth from outside of ourselves. Something like this was bothering me about the end of Elisabeth’s story. I still had more questions. 

Hadn’t Elisabeth striven to follow God her whole life? Why this at the end?  What possible purpose could there be in her quiet suffering all those years? Why did she seem blind to what was going on?  

Like Elsabeth, I grew up in a spiritual tradition of victorious Christian living. With its emphasis on external behavior and doing the right thing, the Christian life seemed little more than a puzzle to be solved. One must learn from the mistakes of others so you can sidestep a similar fault and get on with living a trouble-free Christian life. Figure out the right thing to do, do it, and all will be well. Elisabeth, one of my heroes, did a lot of right things. Over the course of her life she gained wisdom and insight. She served God. Sacrificially. Passionately. Perseveringly. Yet she suffered. She made mistakes.

All was not well 

My deeper questions revealed hidden expectations I was clinging to. Though I whole-hearedly believed in God’s sovereign grace in saving me, I secretly hoped that one day I would no longer need his sanctifying grace. I longed for a day when I wouldn’t have to struggle against sin. I wanted my life to get easier, less messy. After decades of serving him, my strength to fight the fight of faith is getting weaker. I imagined an age where I saw everything clearly, where all of life made sense and I began to live happily ever after.

God in his kindness brought me face to face with his impenetrable mystery. He uses flawed people to reflect his glory and his saints will continue to be flawed until they see him in glory.  It is an unfathomable wonder, but true nonetheless, that he has never used a person who did not have deficiencies. We all have limitations and blind spots. We all begin life unaware of the faulty aspects of the age, culture and Christian traditions we are born into. We all have to contend with the weaknesses that correspond to our personality traits. We all have sins that so easily entangle us. Some of these things God will correct. Some he will not change in our lifetime. 

“Life is not a straight line leading from one blessing to the next and then finally to heaven. Life is like a winding and troubled road. Switchback after switchback. And the point of the biblical stories like Joseph, Job, Esther and Ruth is to help us feel in our bones (not just know in our heads) that God is for us in all these strange turns. God is not just showing up after the trouble and cleaning it up. He is plotting the course and managing the troubles with far-reaching purposes for our good and for the glory of Jesus Christ.” *

“He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” (Phil 1:6) 

To know God is to live free of concerns because you trust him to care for you. He knows your weaknesses, limitations, failings. He knows what you are afraid of. He sees you. He hears you. He knows you. He is going to give you the strength needed for today. (Deut. 33:25). God is not going to let go of you. He knows that any self-sufficiency we assume will harm us, not help us. He knows that apart from him we can do nothing. He will use your frailty to keep you tethered close to him. He will use the lingering effects of sin and the constraints of old age to make us willing to be carried. And that dependence will be our salvation. 

“Listen to me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel,who have been borne by me from before your birth, carried from the womb;even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you.I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save. Isaiah 46:3,4

Elisabeth was aware of some of her faults. Aware that she didn’t see other ones. Aware that she was not able to “figure out life.” And she was content to live with this tension because she lived amazed at the impenetrable mystery of God. When she was no longer able to speak to us, we do not know what communion she continued to have with her Lord. We do know that when the outward person was perishing, the inward person was being renewed day by day. (2 Cor. 4:16) 

Elisabeth has been whole in the presence of God for almost a decade. Perhaps she has learned the answer to some of her questions. Perhaps the questions are no longer important. She would never have wanted to be anyone's hero. She was happy to be a witness to the sovereign goodness of God even when one’s heart is full of questions. She strove only to be faithful. If she, in the glories and perfect joys and love of heaven, even cares about what has been written about her, I think she would be happy to be one individual in the great cloud of witnesses that calls us to “Look to Jesus.” (Heb. 12:2). 

*John Piper, A Sweet and Bitter Providence: Sex, Race, and the Sovereignty of God

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSi3mR9GQIE

https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/alzheimers-the-brain-and-the-soul