This article, written by Elisabeth Elliot in Christianity Today from 1957, hits hard.

Praying that God will protect you from disobedience in the midst of extreme suffering isn’t the first prayer many of us would make.

Yet, it’s probably the most important drawn from Christ’s loudest example:

“Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.”

Soli Deo Gloria!

My developing theodicy on this: Hand to God the millstone of suffering in exchange for His yoke of sanctification.

Elliot: PROTECTION FROM DISOBEDIENCE

“When the Lord Jesus prayed to His Father, as recorded in the seventeenth chapter of John, He asked, too, for protection for those whom the Father had given Him. For what purpose? “… that they may be one, as we are.”

Protection from what? “… that thou shouldst keep them from the evil one.”

Each one of our five men, years before, had asked for the whole accomplishment of God’s will in him at any cost, to the end that Christ be glorified.

The Evil One is determined, however, that Christ shall not be glorified. But, in making them obedient men, God had answered the prayer of His Son, the prayer of the men themselves and the prayer of their wives.

The adversary did not succeed in turning them aside from God’s highest purpose. They were protected from that most fearful of all dangers, disobedience. They loved God above all else.

“Herein is the love of God, that ye keep his commandments.” The prayer of our hearts today, of the widows who remain, is the same: that Christ may be glorified. “

Read the complete article here.

Suffering, Elliot said elsewhere, “is not for nothing.”

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