How far are you willing to go? – In your career? In your
relationship with that ‘special’ someone you call ‘honey’? But most importantly, I ask this question in relation to
your walk with God! When one wants a promotion or a pay rise from his/her
employer, that fellow would go all lengths to ‘please’ the supervising
officers. This includes, but not limited to working longer hours, offering to
get the coffee etc… Similarly, when a 30+ year - old lady wants her boyfriend
to consider her as a ‘marriage material’,
I’d bet she’d go the extent of tidying the house of her ‘prospective’
in-laws, and perhaps wash for them, pretentiously oblivious of the presence of
a house help in the house! Shouldn’t that be the case in our walk with God?
I ask this because most of us Christians seek a ‘reward’
[for lack of a better word] from God for virtually ‘no work’ done – And I literally mean
this!Let me digress a little and take us through how Elijah met Elisha, albeit
briefly. It was simply divine, in my humble opinion. He didn’t find the latter
praying, nor evangelizing, but rather going about his everyday work – ploughing!
He then threw his cloak over Elisha’s shoulder and walked away (1 Kings
19:19-21).
Now let me tackle the ‘meat’ of this note. Fast forwarding
to 2 Kings 2 when Elijah was taken up to Heaven, it is strikingly evident that
he, on three occasions had this to say to Elisha:“Stay here,
Elisha; the Lord has sent me to….Bethel, Jericho and Jordan”! And at the utter of
each ‘order’, his protégé had this to say: “As surely as the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you.” Dare I suggest that
if Elisha had been a child, a scolding of sorts wouldn’t have been out of
place? But the man stood his grounds and followed his master throughout his
journey. Call that positive defiance!
Elisha knew that his mentor was going to be
taking up to heaven. At least, his responses to the questions from the school
of prophets suggest so. I want to believe that his request from Elijah seemed
to have been well-thought through and hatched from the onset. This certainly doesn’t
seem to me as an ‘impromptu’ desire. He’d desired it from the commencement of
their relationship! So when the time came for Elijah to be lifted up into the
skies above, he effortlessly, almost without thinking of the gravity of his
desire, muttered: “Let me inherit a double portion of your spirit,”! Even after
Elijah had explained the magnitude of the request and the conditions under which
it would be granted, Elisha relented not. He followed until he’d met the
conditions set and his request granted! Amazing!
I challenge you, albeit humbly in the Name
of Jesus: Never give up in your walk with God! The tribulations will certainly come;
the persecutions will come but don’t give up, my friend! PERSEVERE till the
crown of life has been given to you as your reward!!!
