‘Not My Will’: Jim and Elisabeth Elliot, Following God No Matter What

Being a Christian doesn't mean everything is wonderful all of the time. Still we know that we can trust Him.

You never know what will be demanded of you when you follow God’s will. It could be your familiar surroundings, your friends, your job or your family — or it could be your life, or the life of a loved one. That’s exactly what was demanded of one family who chose to follow God’s will in the 1950s.

A primitive recording device captured a man’s voice from years past, excitedly producing guttural sounds as he told the story in his language of how he and four of his friends speared to death five missionaries on the beach in Ecuador on January 8, 1956. The man, an indigenous Ecuadorian, told the story of the massacre to a wife of one of the missionaries, Elisabeth Elliot, in the late 1950s. Elisabeth’s story is widely known and full of drama, amazement and miraculous events — but above all it is a story of choosing to follow God’s will.

He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. — Jim Elliot

God’s Will: Missionaries and Married

Elisabeth Elliot was born Elisabeth Howard on December 21, 1926, in Brussels, Belgium, to missionary parents. Within a few months of her birth, her family moved to Philadelphia and grew over time to include four brothers and one sister. Perhaps it wasn’t a surprise to anyone that Elisabeth became a missionary as well. She studied at Wheaton College where she majored in Classical Greek to enable her to work with cultures that did not have a written language, and allow her to develop languages to share the gospel with them.

It was at Wheaton that she met her future husband, Jim Elliot. Jim was the kind of man who sought God’s will continually. He even memorized scripture in the cafeteria line at college. His most famous quote was written in his diary when he was just 22 years old: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose” — a quote that Elisabeth said later seemed prophetic. The two sought God’s will on how to proceed in their relationship — waiting five years before they believed God gave them permission to marry. After years of letter writing and working in Ecuador separately, Jim proposed, with one stipulation: she must learn the language of the Quichua Indian tribe before they married, as he worked with that tribe and she with the Colorados (now called Tsáchilas). She gained a rudimentary understanding of the language and in 1953 the two were wed in Quito.

Reaching the Aucas

After learning of an unreached Indian tribe, the Aucas (now called the Waorani), Jim began to pray God would open a door for the message of salvation to be taken to them. Members of the tribe were known as “savages,” Indians whom no white man had successfully encountered and lived. By this time, Jim and Elisabeth had a baby daughter, Valerie, born in 1955. In 1955, Jim, along with fellow missionaries Nate Saint and Ed McCully, began flying over the Aucas’ houses and dropping gifts to let the Aucas know their presence was not threatening and they were friendly. After much prayer, they asked Roger Youderian and Pete Fleming to join their group.

On January 1, 1956, the five men sang “We rest on thee, our Shield and our Defender.” One week later, the five men were speared to death by the Auca Indians — the very tribe they wanted to reach for Christ.

Is This Your Will?

Elisabeth was baffled by the deaths — these men had trusted God, prayed, been guided by His hand, and placed their confidence in Him as Shield and Defender — yet they were massacred. One verse in particular helped her and the other widows as they mourned: “And the world passes away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides for ever” (1 John 2:17, my emphasis).

Amazingly, Elisabeth continued to seek the will of God. She didn’t give up, go home or blame God. She prayed, as she called it, one of the “most absurd prayers in my life” that God would show her what to do: “It seemed only reasonable to me to say ‘Lord, if there’s anything that you want me to do about those Aucas, send me.’” She continued to translate the Bible and take care of her other duties for two years as she prayed that God’s will would be revealed to her. In 1958, God answered that prayer and she and Valerie went, along with Nate Saint’s sister Rachel, to live with the Aucas as missionaries for two years.

Wholehearted Obedience

It wasn’t easy. Elisabeth realized very quickly that she was out of place and ill-equipped. She didn’t know how to speak their language, catch a fish with her hands, make clay pots, weave hammocks or do anything more than a 10-year-old could. Elisabeth felt that she was a liability in many ways. But because she followed Him, God used her in miraculous ways to bring about healing in her life and salvation in theirs.

Before she left, Elisabeth said that all of the Auca Indians who participated in the deaths of the five missionaries, including her husband, were her friends. She had reached the very people whom her husband tried in vain to reach. A tribal elder who participated in the massacre later said, “My heart was dark like night, but Jesus with his strong blood and the Holy Spirit, came and washed it.”

“Only God understands all of the reasons for the death of Jim Elliot and his four friends,” said Elisabeth, but she acknowledged that through his death, many lives had been impacted for Christ. Jim’s determination to align himself with God’s will took him and Elisabeth through a journey of faith and testing. “He loved God, and proved his love by wholehearted obedience — even to the point of death.” She and Valerie eventually went back to work with the Quichuas until 1963 when the two returned to the U.S.

Elisabeth became a prolific writer, speaker and radio host following her return. She authored many books, including the story of the five missionaries who were killed, titled Through Gates of Splendor.

The Journey is Not Smooth

The story of Elisabeth Elliot doesn’t end there, although that may be all some know. Following God’s will took her once again through difficult terrain. She remarried in 1969 but her husband, Addison Leitch, died only four years later from cancer. She married her third husband, Lars Gren, in 1977. In 2012, the Grens were involved in a very serious car accident. Elisabeth escaped unharmed but Lars sustained a fractured neck and other injuries.

For the last decade of her life, Elisabeth suffered from dementia — a woman so gifted in languages and translation, a woman God had used mightily through her writing and speaking — a struggle that took away her ability to communicate as she had done so beautifully in the past. Elisabeth passed away on June 15, 2015 at the age of 88.

God’s Will — A Beautiful Legacy

Jim’s story will live on for as long as there are Christians to tell it. Elisabeth’s impact as a missionary widow and mother of an infant, seeker of the will of God, Bible translator for the tribe that killed her husband and others, speaker and writer is a testament to God’s grace and love that He bestows when we follow His will — even in the difficult times, even when we don’t understand why.

One thing is certain: whether we live a charmed life or that of a missionary in the jungle, if we follow God’s will for our lives through prayerful discernment, it will be an adventure of ups and downs and questions and guidance — but it will not be in vain. Jesus promised: “And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life” (Matthew 19:29).

Here is the audio from the missionaries’ memorial service in 1956.