The Shadow of the Almighty
I’ve been thinking about jungle missionaries lately. Pam and I went to a funeral for our friend Monica’s mom. Jeanne East and her husband Guy, were missionaries to Bolivia with Wycliffe Bible Translators. It was wonderful being able to hear from her family and friends about what a great woman she was. Apparently she was as comfortable hosting a large dinner party in San Diego, as she was making her way down a jungle path (with machete and pistol tied to her waist.)
Those were real missionaries. People you really had to admire for their willingness to drag themselves and their families to jungles where jungle runways and shortwave radios, machetes and pistols were daily things.
Jungle missionaries always bring to my mind the story of Jim Elliot and the Auca Indians. Read what John Piper had to say about the title of Elizabeth Elliot’s book:
It was not a slip up in 1958 when Elizabeth Elliot gave to “the life and testament” of her slain husband the title, SHADOW OF THE ALMIGHTY. Jim Elliot and four other missionaries to the Aucas were killed on January 8, 1956. In 1949 when Jim Elliot was a college student, he wrote the words that have become the motto of many of our young people at Bethlehem: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”
Around the world the death of Jim Elliot and his four friends was called a nightmare of tragedy. But Elizabeth Elliot wrote, “The world did not recognize the truth of the second clause in Jim Elliot’s credo: ‘He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose’.” She called her book SHADOW OF THE ALMIGHTY from Psalm 91:1 because she was utterly convinced that the refuge of the people of God is not a refuge from suffering and death but a refuge from final and ultimate defeat. He who saves his life will lose it, but he who loses his life for the sake of the gospel will save it—because the Lord is GOD ALMIGHTY. (Piper’s sermon)
What are we trying to save that we ultimately can’t keep?
Elizabeth Elliot writes in the preface of her book:
“Jim’s aim was to know God. His course, obedience – the only course that could lead to the fulfillment of his aim. His end was what some would call an extraordinary death, although in facing death he had quietly pointed out that many have died because of obedience to God.
Is the distinction between living for Christ and dying for Him, after all, so great? Is not the second the logical conclusion of the first?
Further more, to live for God is to die, “daily,†as the apostle Paul put it. It is to lose everything that we may gain Christ. It is in thus laying down our lives that we find them.” P. 11-12
You might be interested in the trailer for “End of the Spear,” a docu-drama telling the story of the missionaries. A documentary was also filmed around the same time called, “Beyond the Gates of Splendor.” Nice trailer.