By Elisabeth Elliot

      Through a disagreement with my husband Lars yesterday I suddenly recognized an instrument used powerfully by the enemy to drive a wedge between two people who love each other (and there is nothing which fills the enemy with such glee as destroying unity). It is reason. I had good reasons for my argument and so did he. Reason comes very close to being an idol to me at times, and I am tempted to make sacrifices on its altar.

      "Be faithful to Reason!" whispers the Destroyer. "Do not let go!"

      "Be faithful to Me," Christ says, "give up your reasons, give way to Truth."

      Reason is one of God's great gifts. We have intelligence and the faculty of reason, to be employed in the service of God and other people. Faithfulness to Christ (who is Truth) does not negate reason, but purifies it, raises it to a higher level.

      "Pure" reason, logical argument, stood between my husband and me, as it stood between Job and his friends, and Jesus and the Pharisees.

      "Knowledge gives self-importance--it is love that makes the building grow. A man may imagine that he understands something, but still not understand anything in the way he ought to!" (1 Cor 8:1,2 JB).