"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."

These words by missionary martyr Jim Elliot have resounded in my heart ever since I first heard them many years ago. They reveal the heartbeat of Wheaton College graduate Jim Elliot, who chose to surrender his worldly career and life to God, venturing into Equador against conventional wisdom and making first contact with the Auca Indians, a tribe known for their brutality. Jim was later killed, along with four of his friends, by the Aucas, who had mistakenly assumed that the five men intended to eat them. The entire tribe later came to give their lives to Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit, after Jim's widow Elisabeth took her daughter Valerie to live among the tribe for two and a half years. The ministry of Elisabeth and the other widows touched the Aucas as they could not understand how these women could forgive them despite what they had done to their husbands.

I was reminded of the Elliots' story yesterday after watching a musical staged by Mt Carmel BP Church entitled Love Above All (the photo above depicts a young Elisabeth who was at that time experiencing emotional turmoil, torn between her love for Jim and her love for missions).

Attending the musical with a group of youth leaders whom I'm mentoring, I posed a question to them - Was it "worth it" for Jim Elliot to make the trip to the Auca Indians? While I'm interested to hear their response, I'm personally at a loss regarding how to answer my own question. I mean - is the loss of human life ever "worth it"? Even if it results in the salvation of an entire tribe? What about the current hostage crisis in Afghanistan and the death of the Korean pastor? Was it "worth it" for the Koreans to make the trip in the first place? Even if through this incident the entire Christian community has been rallied in prayer? I don't know the answer; only one person does. 

John 15:13 reads "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends." It was because God first loved us, that's why He sent His son Jesus to descend to earth as a man to die for the salvation for all mankind. There is indeed no greater love than this.

I'm certain that Jim and Elisabeth Elliot fully understood this principle. In her book Under the Shadow of the Almighty, Elisabeth shared the passion behind her decision to travel with Jim into the mission field. She wrote about Jim's unwavering decision to give up a respectable job as a teacher to pursue his calling. It was the same for her - that's why she chose to forgive those who killed her husband and made the unimaginable decision to instead bring her daughter to live among the Aucas. I'm certain these were choices that were modelled after a man who chose to die so that all humanity be saved - the life of Jesus the Christ.