Asking for a miracle

This an extract from a letter Jim Elliot wrote to his sister from Ecuador.

We also wanted to find out if there was any truth to the possible friendly contact the southern Quechua might have with the Aucas, the one really savage tribe down here. There isn’t. They have just killed five in the area. We were looking for Auca homes as well, but found nothing… More and more that tribe is brought before as a possible field of labour for my life. They are utterly untouched. And so far they are inaccessible. It would take a miracle to open the way to them, and we are praying for that miracle.

Shadow of the Almighty p221-222

Is it too simplistic to say that God answers prayers, but not always in the way we expect him to answer? For Jim Elliot the miracle came after his death. The door that opened, and that eventually led to members of the Waorani tribe (the Aucas) finding faith, was truly a miraculous answer to this prayer, but could anyone have predicted it to be so? Jim Elliot certainly knew the risks that faced them as they sought to reach this people, but he was willing to face that risk, to do all that he could do in offering himself for God’s purposes.

We can’t speculate how things might have been had Jim Elliot and the others not died on that riverbank. I’m sure that God could have and probably would have reached into that group of people another way, but I wonder. It’s one of those interesting questions.

Sidestep for a moment into science or history. We assume that if Newton had not “discovered” gravity then someone else would have done so. But is that a reasonable assumption? There is at least one school of thought that suggests that this might not be so.

Step back into the realm of following God. What is God waiting to do if you only you will walk in obedience to his call? Jim Elliot spoke about the Auca Indians as a possible field of labour for my life. I guess God achieved exactly what he wanted to achieve through Jim’s life.

The question is—is he being allowed to achieve what he wants to achieve through your life because you are submitting it willing to his purposes?