Good Morning Friends,
“So Elijah went from there and found Elisha son
of Shaphat. He was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen, and he himself was driving
the twelfth pair. Elijah went up to him and threw his cloak around him. Elisha
then left his oxen and ran after Elijah. ‘Let me kiss my father and mother good-by,’
he said, ‘and then I will come with you.’ ‘Go back,’ Elijah replied. ‘What have
I done to you?’ So Elisha left him and went back. He 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 he set out to follow Elijah and became his
attendant.” (1 Kings 19:19-21)
It was time for Elijah to begin to train his
successor and Elisha had been chosen by God for the assignment. There are two
things that strike me about the call of Elisha.
Elijah knew it was time to train the man who
would replace him. Elijah was not bent on retaining all the attention for
himself, he was willing to begin to mentor Elisha and groom him as a prophet. For
Elijah, the work of God was far more important than his own prestige and position.
He knew that he would not continue to serve as God’s prophet forever. There
would come a day when he would lay his work aside for another to pick up and he
was ready to be sure someone was prepared for the task.
Elisha was ready and willing to leave
everything behind and pick up the assignment that God was calling him to
accept. Anyone who was at all familiar with the ministry of Elijah … as I’m
sure Elisha must have been … would have known that the assignment was not always
a pleasant one. Elijah was threatened by the king, pursued by the queen,
rejected by the people, and fought by the false prophets. But that was the task
to which God had called him and Elijah accepted it willingly. Now Elisha was
being asked to prepare to take on that task and he didn’t hesitate … he
willingly went with Elijah and became his protégé and successor.
Are you clinging tightly to the assignment God
has given to you in His Kingdom … or are you more concerned with God’s work and
giving consideration to how it will continue after you must lay it down?
Are you willing to accept, without hesitation,
any assignment that God has for you, no matter how difficult that assignment
is?
His, by Grace,
Steve
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