Good morning my “Walking with Jesus” friends on this, the last day of May, ’24.
Are you ready to turn the page on your calendar, closing out May and stepping into June, as summer ’24 ramps up? For many of you my friends, this will be a month of transitions. Some of you are retiring and handing your business to someone else; some of you are relocating, leaving your home to someone else as you move to live in another place; some of you are watching your kids or grandkids graduate and step into what’s next for them; some of you giving your daughters to marry young men you hope will love them as much as you do.
Let’s go back and rejoin the old prophet Elijah as he leaves his very powerful encounters with God on Mt Horeb/Sinai, and sets out to do the things God instructed him to do, beginning with finding a young prophet named Elisha. Now please don’t get these two men confused. Elijah is who we’ve been walking with the past few days, the courageous old prophet who had the showdown on Mt Carmel with wicked King Ahab and the prophets of Baal, when God sent fire from heaven! At Mt Horeb, God had assured Elijah that he was not alone even though he felt he was, and he was sent to find a young man named Elisha.
Why? Elijah’s time was drawing to a close. He had accomplished his assignment from God as God’s prophet but now there were younger generations who needed a spokesman from God to challenge them as Elijah had challenged his generation. God is always looking ahead, planning for the future, did you know that? And so the logical application for you and me is to ask… who will carry on after I’m gone? Carry on what? Carry on being a man or woman of God, whom God can trust to involve in His plans and purposes around the world in each generation!
God had said to Elijah: “..anoint Elisha son of Shaphat from Abel Meholah to succeed you as prophet.” (1 Kings 19:16)
I’ve searched my Old Testament maps and I find “Abel Meholah”, Elisha’s home, was a small town west of the Jordan river about 20 miles northeast of Samaria, the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel, in about 850bc. “Tishbe”, Elijah’s hometown, was about 12 miles further northeast, across the Jordan river on the east side. I don’t know if these two men had ever met before, but it seems clear Elisha knew of the famous prophet Elijah as he was startled when Elijah walked, unannounced, onto Elisha’s farm. I’m sure Elijah was weary, for it was probably about 200 miles from Mt Horeb to Abel Meholah! The record says: “Elijah found Elisha plowing with twelve yoke of oxen…!” (1 Kings 19:19) Now for most of us in Europe or North America, plowing the ground behind oxen yoked together is probably a picture you can’t really frame in your mind! We are accustomed to big John Deere tractors pulling huge farm machinery doing the work 100 times more efficiently than what Elisha was doing… but let’s at least try to put ourselves into that scene with Elisha and his oxen.
Did you notice how many oxen? 24 oxen yoked together tells me Elisha had a fairly large farm, equipment probably quite sophisticated for his day, and maybe he even bred his own oxen for maximum strength.
Seems to me Elisha was quite successful as a farmer. I wonder if you, or anyone you know, has sensed the call of God to leave that which you were successful in doing, in order to follow God to a different place and do something entirely different? On this day, I wonder if Elisha got up early to prepare his oxen for a full day of plowing, or did he wake up with a strange sense that something special, something unusual was going to happen to him that day?
I doubt the record gives us all the details for it simply says: “Elijah went up to Elisha and threw his cloak around Elisha.” In that time of history, evidently people understood that when an older man, nearing retirement or death, put his ‘cloak’ over the shoulder of a younger man, it symbolized the passing of a mantle of responsibility or role or honor or privilege. We don’t know if anyone saw this happen, but evidently Elisha knew exactly what the significance of this moment was. The famous prophet Elijah was selecting Elisha to be his successor. In the world of business or politics or education we call it a ‘succession plan’. We have no evidence Elijah had a succession plan but God did, and God even identified who and when Elijah was to call his successor into God’s transition plan. Evidently Elijah threw his cloak on Elisha, may have said a few words and then walked away, leaving Elisha to contemplate what this would mean for his life, his successful farm and his family. He asked for time to find his family and explain to them that God had called him to a new career path, a new adventure with God and with Elijah!
This has happened to me not once or twice but several times. It’s a very exciting experience, but at the same time it can be frightening, when you have a clear sense that God is calling you to a new assignment from God, especially if it requires packing up and moving far away, maybe even moving to a different country! May I ask an important question:
If God wanted to involve you in what He is doing, are you prepared to follow Him, leaving where you are and what you are currently doing, being totally available to God for Him to accomplish His purpose through you? Are there some boundaries or restrictions in your mind and heart that would limit what you’d be willing to do if God called you?
In my experience and from what I’ve seen in history, God promises to strengthen those who are willing for Him to involve them in what God is doing (2 Chronicles 16:9) but it must be without restrictions. Elisha did something radical. It was the evidence to him, his family, everyone who knew him and especially to God that Elisha was ‘all in’! The record says: “So Elisha took his yoke of oxen and slaughtered them. He burned the plowing equipment to cook the meat and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then Elisha set out to follow Elijah and became his servant!“ (1 Kings 19:21)
Now, would you say that was radical commitment or lunacy, stupidity? Obviously for Elisha, this was an ‘all in’ commitment to God and Elijah and there was no going back, no ‘plan B’. We don’t know to whom Elisha left his land, his home etc., but clearly Elisha was not allowing himself an option if the challenge ahead became too difficult! Watch this closely my friends, for as God works to hold back the advance of the dark kingdom around the world, and maybe in your town, this is sometimes the level of commitment required for those who will partner with God in accomplishing significant God assignments. How’s your heart in this moment as you consider Elisha and what he did?
I think we need to pause here on this last day of May and reflect on this remarkable scene and the implications for those who watched it all happen, and especially for Elisha as he walked away with Elijah that day! Does this remind you of what the apostle Paul wrote in his letter to the Christians in Philippi: “Whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things…I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection…” (Phil. 3:7-12)
And here’s a worship song to help us reflect on this remarkable event my friends…
Today’s Scripture: 1 Kings 19:19-21.
Choose below to read or listen.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
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Pastor Doug Anderson
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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