The Dangerous Gamble

 

1King 19:19, Mark 10:17-30, Gene 12:1-6

This was the story of Prophet Elijah and how he anointed Elisha as his servant and the one that will take over from him at the end of his ministry.

The high point of the consecration service was when Elisha decided to kill his oxen and cooked it as a send-off meal for his friends and relatives. In our understanding, it would seem Elisha did not do the right thing or take the right decision. The question that might agitate the mind of many people is, was Elisha right to have destroyed his means of livelihood in order to follow an uncertain future? It was like giving up the known to pursue the unknown.

What was going on in his mind when he chose to follow Elijah and forsake all?

Before we can answer these questions, we should flip back and read the earlier encounter of Elijah with God when he was commanded to anoint Elisha as a prophet to replace him. This again will raise another question; was Elisha privy to this encounter? What really motivated Elisha to have took such giant leap toward realising his God giving ministry?

Let take a short journey back to the ancient Japan. History has it that whenever Japanese soldiers go to battle, one thing they do after conquering a territory was to burn down the bridge behind them and move on the next victory. The import of such, we were told was to foreclose any chances of running back from the war front in the event that the battle become so intense.

In my understanding, what Elisha did was to kill the two oxen that represent his tool for survival as a farmer so that when the going become tough, he won’t be tempted to run back to his old trade and abandon his God giving vision.

Many of us are still holding on to our old ways of life, we still oscillate between our present and past indecisive of which way we should sway to.

In the world where alternatives abound, where we have many options to resort to, we have remain unstable to the extent of compromising our faith and lack the required commitment and zeal to pursue our God given vision with all vigour.

Until we are able to burn the bridge and hold on to the calling of the one who created us for a purpose, we may continue to wallow in the darkness of life without being able to fulfil destiny.

Just like Abraham, we must be ready to follow God’s instruction, even at the risk of leaving behind the certainty for uncertainty. Abraham became the father of faith simply because he was willing to trust God against the reality of his situation. “He hope against hope” and refused to stagger in faith, knowing that he that promised is capable of bringing His promise to pass in his life.