By Pastor John Brito
You want God to bless your life. You want to draw closer to him. You want to grow in your faith. You want to serve him. You want to experience his presence like never before. You want God to do powerful things in your life. But there’s one thing that keeps getting in the way of this: Surrendering to God’s call.
The Christian life is about surrender. God calls us, and we must surrender. He calls us to follow Jesus. He calls us to get baptized. He calls us to leave our sinful past. He calls us to serve him and others. He calls us to a profession. He calls us to ministry.
But you may fear God’s calling for different reasons. You may fear leaving your comfort zone to step into God’s unknown. You may fear not having what it takes to remain faithful to God for a lifetime. You may fear not being ready to leave your sinful past. So you don’t surrender to God’s call on your life.
There is one thing that you can do that will forever settle all doubts about answering God’s call on your life. Elisha did it, and it placed him on a path to becoming one of the greatest prophets of all time.
His story is found in 1 Kings 19:19-21: So Elijah went and found Elisha son of Shaphat plowing a field. There were twelve teams of oxen in the field, and Elisha was plowing with the twelfth team. Elijah went over to him and threw his cloak across his shoulders and then walked away.20 Elisha left the oxen standing there, ran after Elijah, and said to him, “First let me go and kiss my father and mother good-bye, and then I will go with you!” Elijah replied, “Go on back, but think about what I have done to you.”21 So Elisha returned to his oxen and slaughtered them. He used the wood from the plow to build a fire to roast their flesh. He passed around the meat to the townspeople, and they all ate. Then he went with Elijah as his assistant. (NLT)
Elijah was a prophet that worked miracles. He would strike the Jordan River with his cloak and the river would part. He once asked God to send fire from heaven to demonstrate to the people of Israel that he alone was God, and God sent fire. Elijah even told King Ahab, the king of Israel, that it would not rain for three years on account of the king’s sin and the sin of the people, and it did not rain throughout that time. But Elijah had been ordered by God to anoint Elisha as his successor.
When Elisha felt Elijah’s cloak over his shoulders he understood that he was being called to become Elijah’s apprentice. So, he ran after Elijah to make this request: “First let me go and kiss my father and mother good-bye, and then I will go with you!” This is understandable. He may never see his family again. He then slaughtered the oxen and built a fire using the wood from the plow to roast the meat and invited the town to come and eat and celebrate his calling.
All of this makes perfect sense. But why did he burn the wood from the plow? There must have been other fire wood around. Here’s why. By burning the plow, Elisha was burning bridges to his past. He didn’t want anything left to come back to. Here’s a principle: We must burn bridges to our past to answer the call of God.
By burning the plow, he was burning the bridge to his financial security. His father, Shaphat, had 12 teams of oxen in the field. This number of oxen meant that he had a large field on which to plant crops. Shaphat seems to have been well off. Elisha, as the heir, lived a comfortable life and had a promising future. But he walked away from this security and stepped into God’s unknown with no intentions of ever returning to this life. No matter how tough things might get in his service to Elijah, Elisha had decided to burn the bridges to his past to answer God’s call and see it through. And it paid off for he would inherit a double portion of Elijah’s anointing and become one the greatest prophets of all time.
What bridges do you need to burn to answer God’s call? Jesus calls us to serve him and never turn back. In fact, he said in Luke 9:62, “Anyone who puts a hand to the plow and then looks back is not fit for the Kingdom of God.” (NLT) We can’t leave things from our sinful past to go back to them just in case things don’t work out with Jesus. We can’t let comfort and security compete with God’s call on our life. Relationships cannot hinder us from answering the call of God on our life.
What would happen if you burned the bridges to your past? You would overcome your fears. You would quiet all doubts. You would answer God’s call and enter a new season of blessing for you and your family.
What would you avoid if you burned the bridges to your past? You wouldn’t be asking, what if I had only answered the call? You would avoid living a life of regret.
What would you be transformed into? You would become a hero to your family. You would become an anointed servant of God who would witness God’s power.
So what plow do you need to burn to answer the call of God on your life?
