Leave the Results with God

Author: Elisabeth Elliot
Source: A Lamp For My Feet
Scripture Reference: Matthew 10:34 Leave the Results with God


Scripture does not promise that obedience to God will always be attended by earthly success and never by difficulties. Someone asked me again last week if I am not bothered by the negative results attending our opening up the Auca tribe to the gospel. "Of course I am bothered," I said. We messengers of the gospel are sinners like the Aucas--God has chosen to work through sinful human beings--and while we offer to them Bread and the Water of Life, which are priceless, we also introduce to them new varieties of sin and disease. We pray for protection from such things--for ourselves and for them. We must do the thing commanded--preach the gospel--and we must trust God for the results. If we wait until we are sure we shall do a thing purely and perfectly, we shall never accomplish the will of God on earth.


Negative results are not by any means always the fault of God's messengers. Recall the warnings Jesus gave his disciples when He sent them out to preach the kingdom--they could expect to be rejected, arrested, and flogged. Families would turn against each other. "I have not come to bring peace, but a sword," he said (Mt 10:34 NEB). Recall, too, the death of innocent infant boys as a result of the birth of One who the king feared might supplant him. God is engineering a master plan for good. Only He sees the end from the beginning.