Words from the Office
This week’s “Word from the Office” is an excerpt from A Lamp Unto My Feet: The Bible’s Light for Your Daily Walk, by Elisabeth Elliot (1926-2015).
“One aspect of the mystery of God’s sovereign will is how the calculated evil of men is not only permitted but also actually becomes a necessary part of the divine plan. We are tempted to think of the wrongs done to us as hindrances, frustrations, interruptions. “What has this got to do with the will of God?” we ask, irritated and, we suppose, justifiably impatient with human interference. But the truth is that both our time and our way are in God’s hands-they are appointed. Surely it is so for all His sons as it was for the Son of Man. When He was on the verge of being “handed over for crucifixion” (Matthew 26:2) and betrayed by one of his own disciples, He said, “My appointed time is near…One who has dipped his hand into this bowl with me will betray me. The Son of Man is going the way appointed for him” (w. 18, 23-24, emphasis added).
Out of the deepest depths of human evil, the good God brought salvation—the very salvation of man whose sinfulness killed the Son He sent. Nothing can reach us, from any source on Earth or in hell, no matter how evil, that God cannot turn to His own redemptive purpose. Let us be glad that the way is not a game of chance, a mere roll of dice that determines our fortune or calamity—it is a way appointed, and it is appointed for God’s eternal glory and our final good.”
- Elisabeth Elliot
