My sister was scrolling through her phone and made a comment that has left my thoughts full, “Elisabeth Elliot died today.” I knew she was near the end of life and battling alzheimer’s disease. In the back of my mind I knew I would hear this news soon. Ironically, I got a push notification the other day on my phone from a news app that informed me that Jeb Bush, a presidential candidate, considers himself “an introvert.” I guess that would be considered critical to announce? But sadly I saw nothing on a newsfeed to inform me of the death of a hero. Kim and I sat as she read me a summary of Elisabeth’s life. All I could think about was how fixed she was on this one cause: “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” From a young age it was modeled out by her missionary parents, “We will live and breathe for the cause of Christ.” The fire was lit inside of her and continued to grow in power and heat all through her life. The telltale sign that informs me of this, though not ever knowing this woman personally, is that her life was that of sacrifice, risk, and purpose. Like a sower scattering seed in an open field, her life was driven to make things grow all over the planet. Elisabeth Elliott took seriously the Great Commission and without hesitation, churned with this motive up until her dying day. I began reading an article in Psychology Today about reinventing ourselves in the later years of our lives. The author spoke of the need to evaluate and reshape ourselves as our lives move forward in time. I am quite sure Elisabeth had the same primary goal, but after being battered by loss and a catalyst for change to a primitive people, her life took a different shape as the years went on. What hit me from this article was something rather simple. If we don’t have a purpose to our lives, higher than our own comfort and ease, we will atrophy. One comment stood out to me from Art Markman a professor of psychology from University of Texas at Austin, “If you don’t have a long-term goals you run the risk of doing lots of little things every day--cleaning the house, sending emails, catching up on TV--without ever making a contribution to your future.” This becomes a feeling of purposelessness. Translated for those of us who are believers, if we don’t contribute to the cause we are called to be a part of, we will shrink our lives down to nothing important. Our time will waste away on Youtube, Facebook and online shopping. Hours and hours that add up to days and days
Our goals should not just be about what the article titles “our future,” as that can be as self-serving as our present laziness and distraction. For those of us who believe that Jesus was really the Son of God, we must see ourselves as agents of bringing heaven to earth. Elisabeth Elliot wasn’t perfect with this call. Nor is anyone. Each morning we must call out to the Spirit of God to develop a beatitudes lifestyle, to make us people who love our enemies and our family, to give us freedom from self-absorption, to wrap us in the humility of Christ, to want the same things that Jesus wanted and to hate the same things He hated. This surrender is essential to growth. It is sadly true that we can know the Lord’s salvation, understand the problem of sin, get that the cross of Christ is our means to salvation, and live never truly embracing it as it was meant to be. We could die and go to heaven and yet never have lived the life on earth we were called to live. most of us check our email more than we read Scripture, too many times we watch youtube more than we pray. An atrophied life.
This is why stories like Elisabeth Elliot’s should be told. We need something to aim for.
