1 Kings 19:19 – 21 “So Elijah departed and found Elisha son of Shaphat. He was plowing with twelve teams of oxen, and he was with the twelfth team. Elijah passed by him and threw his cloak around him.
So Elisha left the oxen, ran after Elijah, and said, “Please let me kiss my father and mother goodbye, and then I will follow you.”
“Go on back,” Elijah replied, “for what have I done to you?”
So Elisha turned back from him, took his pair of oxen, and slaughtered them. With the oxen’s equipment, he cooked the meat and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he set out to follow and serve Elijah.”
When Elisha got up that morning and went out to plow, he had no idea that by the end of the day, the purpose of his whole life would be radically changed. Elisha’s father was a well – to – do farmer with twelve teams of oxen, and Elisha was plowing when the prophet Elijah came to him and threw his cloak around him. This act of Elijah was to symbolize that God was passing the mantle of prophecy from Elijah to Elisha. But what happened to Elisha when that cloak wrapped around him?
When the mantle of the Lord wrapped around Elisha, the tectonic plates of his life shifted, resulting in a spiritual earthquake. Shaken out of the ordinary, Elisha suddenly realized that God was calling him for something amazing. As a dutiful son, Elisha begged to tell his parents farewell, and this was a critical juncture. Elijah WANTED Elisha to follow him, but God had constrained Elijah so that if Elisha failed to respond appropriately, there was nothing that Elijah could do about it. That was why Elijah gave such a strange reply to Elisha.
Why did Elisha immediately go back, slaughter the team of oxen that he was driving, and use the wooden yoke and the plow for firewood to cook the meat? Elisha was making a burnt offering of his previous life. When Elisha slaughtered those oxen, he was demonstrating that he was turning his back on everything he had done up until now and that he was entering a new life. Elisha’s final act as a son of that household was to serve up the meat from his team of oxen to the people around him. From that point onward, Elisha followed Elijah.
APPLICATION: Radical commitments! If our lives are to count for God, we must reach a point at which we are willing to leave everything we have done previously and enter into a new way of living. When Jesus called his disciples, they were fishing, they were collecting taxes, they were doing all kinds of ordinary work. But when that call came, it was so compelling that these men left everything to follow Jesus immediately.
Billy Sunday was a great evangelist in the early part of the Twentieth Century. When Billy Sunday heard the call of God, he was a drunken baseball player standing outside the Pacific Garden Mission in Chicago. While all Billy’s mates went off to find more beer, Billy turned and entered the revival service, choosing a transformed life.
Jim Elliott, one of the five missionaries martyred by the Auca Indians, wrote in his diary, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” It was also Elliott who said, “God always gives His best to those who leave the choice with him.” William Borden was the heir to the Borden Dairy fortune, but he left wealth and social position behind to go to Egypt. Borden died of meningitis while studying Arabic so that he could become an evangelist to Muslims. Borden’s comment on his life choice: “No reserves, no retreats, no regrets.”
What is God calling you to do today? The times in which Elijah and Elisha lived were troubled ones. Ahab and Jezebel were still ruling Israel and promoting the worship of Baal and Asherah. Economic conditions were harsh and uncertain. But when Elijah threw that cloak over Elisha, Elisha didn’t hesitate; he left everything behind to follow Elijah and the call God was placing on his life.
When God has called you to do something, don’t hesitate and don’t deliberate, but move forward. Francis Schaeffer was a highly successful minister in America with a large congregation and a comfortable situation. In 1955 God called Schaeffer and his family to leave everything and to move to a remote part of Switzerland. What the Schaeffers did not anticipate was that God would use that move to allow them to establish the L’Abri Retreat Center. (L’Abri is French for “the shelter.”) L’Abri became a place where people who were earnestly seeking God could have their questions answered and find faith. Others had their faith strengthened by the clear incisive writing of Francis and Edith Schaeffer. Only God knows the millions whose lives have been touched because Francis and Edith Schaeffer made that radical move.
PRAYER: Father God, thank You for loving us and for caring for us. Lord, You are calling all of us to come up higher and to leave the ordinary to follow You. Give us hearts that are willing to listen, minds willing to receive, and the courage to follow where You lead us. In the mighty and precious Name of King Jesus. Amen.
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