Our Sixth Traveling Companion: Elisha
. . . who walked behind another
Then he arose and went after Elijah.
(1 Kings 19:21)
He counseled kings, he raised the dead, he fed multitudes with a few loaves of bread. But when I think of Elisha it is not first of all as the bald-headed wonder worker he later became. It is of Elisha as a young man ... following in the footsteps of another. There are two figures on the heat-shimmering roads of Palestine, and Elisha's is second. A few steps ahead of him strides Elijah, Elisha's teacher and guide. It's a relationship that suggests our own need for pathfinders on the spiritual journey.
Our guide may be a contemporary, someone we know - an inspiring preacher, some saint living down the block. Or someone we meet through books - Albert Schweitzer or St. Theresa. Perhaps our guide lived centuries ago -- Thomas a Kempis or Julian of Norwich. Through their writing we can follow today the paths they pioneered before us. Maybe one pacesetter will guide our journey from start to finish, as Francis of Assisi did for St. Clare. Or maybe at each stage in our pilgrimage a new companion will point the way. Whenever and however these leader/learner relationships form, one thing is sure: our lives are never again the same.
This is certainly how it was for young Elisha, plodding peacefully along behind his ox team, when a gaunt, travel-stained stranger strode across his field. Elisha's farm lay in the loveliest part of Palestine, the fertile valley south of the Sea of Galilee. The family home would have been a rambling brick building with a stucco facade and an interior of cool limestone. Here in this pleasant setting Elisha expected to live out his days.
Step 1: Seeing the big picture
Barring war or other disaster, only one thing could upset this gratifying life plan. One thing can shake you and me loose from our comfortable pattern and set us marching for God.
That is the vision of our place in a larger story. We may be sure Elisha had this vision simply because he was a Hebrew. At about five he would have joined the other boys of the village to begin his study of history, absorbing the God-haunted saga of his people from the elders of his community. That sacred history is our story too.
Step 2: Hearing the call
Now grown up, with his own snug slot in the scheme of things, Elisha is pursuing the work he has always done. And suddenly, in the very act of turning a furrow - putting the dishes in the dishwasher, typing a paper for school, boarding the train for work - he feels an unfamiliar mantle settle over his shoulders. That God has a purpose for human life, that He has advanced it through individual people in the past - this we can learn through study. But to believe that He wants to act now- and through me - that takes a personal encounter.
How and when do we receive this personal directive? Probably it will not come, as it did not for Elisha, while we are sitting with our hands folded awaiting a message-from-on-high, but while we are going energetically about our daily tasks.
Step 3: Counting the cost
The meaning of the great prophet's gesture was clear at once to Elisha. Clear and terrifying: someday you are to wear my cloak - to fill my shoes, we would say today. Elisha the farmer succeed the famous prophet Elijah? Elisha recognized him of course - all Israel knew the great man who in a showdown with the prophets of Baal only a few weeks previously had called down fire from heaven!
Whatever calling you and I have from God, it can scarcely be more daunting than Elisha's. Daunting and - humanly speaking - unwelcome. Leave the bulging barns of home for a life of conflict and risk? Ever since King Ahab married the foreign princess Jezebel, Elijah has carried on a one-man-protest campaign against her religion. At this very moment he is the object of an official manhunt. Following him will demand sacrifice and courage.
Step 4: Giving our answer
Elisha, however, needs no persuading. Just as a group of fisherman on the nearby lake, hundreds of years in the future, will respond to another call and leave their nets, so Elisha drops his plow without even finishing the field.
Elijah meanwhile has not even broken his stride. The old prophet is already continuing on his way; Elisha has to run after him with his resounding Yes! Elisha knows how very much he has to learn. He knows he will hot have a day, not an hour too many with this companion on the road. As swiftly as that he makes the transition from a landowner, a man with his own plans and expectations, to a disciple, a follower of another.
Lord of the Journey, thank You for those who've traveled this way before. Show me the guide you've chosen for me - and give me the grace to set out running!
Meet our next companion now>
Then he arose and went after Elijah.
(1 Kings 19:21)
He counseled kings, he raised the dead, he fed multitudes with a few loaves of bread. But when I think of Elisha it is not first of all as the bald-headed wonder worker he later became. It is of Elisha as a young man ... following in the footsteps of another. There are two figures on the heat-shimmering roads of Palestine, and Elisha's is second. A few steps ahead of him strides Elijah, Elisha's teacher and guide. It's a relationship that suggests our own need for pathfinders on the spiritual journey.
Our guide may be a contemporary, someone we know - an inspiring preacher, some saint living down the block. Or someone we meet through books - Albert Schweitzer or St. Theresa. Perhaps our guide lived centuries ago -- Thomas a Kempis or Julian of Norwich. Through their writing we can follow today the paths they pioneered before us. Maybe one pacesetter will guide our journey from start to finish, as Francis of Assisi did for St. Clare. Or maybe at each stage in our pilgrimage a new companion will point the way. Whenever and however these leader/learner relationships form, one thing is sure: our lives are never again the same.
This is certainly how it was for young Elisha, plodding peacefully along behind his ox team, when a gaunt, travel-stained stranger strode across his field. Elisha's farm lay in the loveliest part of Palestine, the fertile valley south of the Sea of Galilee. The family home would have been a rambling brick building with a stucco facade and an interior of cool limestone. Here in this pleasant setting Elisha expected to live out his days.
Step 1: Seeing the big picture
Barring war or other disaster, only one thing could upset this gratifying life plan. One thing can shake you and me loose from our comfortable pattern and set us marching for God.
That is the vision of our place in a larger story. We may be sure Elisha had this vision simply because he was a Hebrew. At about five he would have joined the other boys of the village to begin his study of history, absorbing the God-haunted saga of his people from the elders of his community. That sacred history is our story too.
Step 2: Hearing the call
Now grown up, with his own snug slot in the scheme of things, Elisha is pursuing the work he has always done. And suddenly, in the very act of turning a furrow - putting the dishes in the dishwasher, typing a paper for school, boarding the train for work - he feels an unfamiliar mantle settle over his shoulders. That God has a purpose for human life, that He has advanced it through individual people in the past - this we can learn through study. But to believe that He wants to act now- and through me - that takes a personal encounter.
How and when do we receive this personal directive? Probably it will not come, as it did not for Elisha, while we are sitting with our hands folded awaiting a message-from-on-high, but while we are going energetically about our daily tasks.
Step 3: Counting the cost
The meaning of the great prophet's gesture was clear at once to Elisha. Clear and terrifying: someday you are to wear my cloak - to fill my shoes, we would say today. Elisha the farmer succeed the famous prophet Elijah? Elisha recognized him of course - all Israel knew the great man who in a showdown with the prophets of Baal only a few weeks previously had called down fire from heaven!
Whatever calling you and I have from God, it can scarcely be more daunting than Elisha's. Daunting and - humanly speaking - unwelcome. Leave the bulging barns of home for a life of conflict and risk? Ever since King Ahab married the foreign princess Jezebel, Elijah has carried on a one-man-protest campaign against her religion. At this very moment he is the object of an official manhunt. Following him will demand sacrifice and courage.
Step 4: Giving our answer
Elisha, however, needs no persuading. Just as a group of fisherman on the nearby lake, hundreds of years in the future, will respond to another call and leave their nets, so Elisha drops his plow without even finishing the field.
Elijah meanwhile has not even broken his stride. The old prophet is already continuing on his way; Elisha has to run after him with his resounding Yes! Elisha knows how very much he has to learn. He knows he will hot have a day, not an hour too many with this companion on the road. As swiftly as that he makes the transition from a landowner, a man with his own plans and expectations, to a disciple, a follower of another.
Lord of the Journey, thank You for those who've traveled this way before. Show me the guide you've chosen for me - and give me the grace to set out running!
Meet our next companion now>