How many times have we gone off-track from the plan of God because the reply from God did not reach us in time due to congestion (busyness of life) in our bandwidth (time= 24 hours) after we waited so long making request for a direction. Having faced delay in answer how many times did we act according to human wisdom and thinking thereby missing a wholesome healing in the lives of people whom God sent to us from time to time. (read it again n again)
How fast our attention gets diverted from God and His kingdom business to the pleasures and wealth of this world. (New technologies and gadgets that appear in the market..Do that tempt us? Are we tempted to change mobiles according to the latest trends?)
How much debts are we in today due to lack of discipline?
How many time have our prayers for a miracle not been answered, but we blamed the lack of faith of the person who came for prayer?
How often do we find ourselves short of weapons to fight the devil and even those weapon that we hold slip off?
How many spiritual-murders have happened because of our wild living? (Especially the personal staff of leaders of organizations like drivers, house-helpers etc. Does the wild living of these leaders offend them?)
What does our ear Hear?
The decisions of Elisha have perplexed me so much as I was pondering on 2 Kings chapter 5.
(Instance 1) How could a man with all human weaknesses stayed inside his home when the commander-in-chief of a nation’s army with his security and set-ups of chariots carrying 340 kilos of silver, 70 kilos of gold and 10 sets of clothing came to him at his door steps seeking help. The temptation of making friendship for future benefits would have been surely there apart from the reason for which the officer has come, to get healed of his sickness by praying to Jehovah God. Rather he sent a servant and conveyed the message of God to the army chief.
(Instance 2) Adding to that curiosity of mine as I continued reading was Elisha’s ability to say no to any of the big gifts that the army chief offered him as an act of thanksgiving for receiving healing from a big sickness.
As I stayed amazed and kept asking How? How? How could he do that....? I realized,
How loud and clear and instant would have Elisha heard the Lord speaking to him. The Lord might have said something like this, “Stay inside and don’t move” and “Dare not touch them” in each instance respectively. Elisha may not have understood why, but He obeyed God.
I tried to put myself in place of Elisha to see what my reactions would have been. I certainly would have gone out of my way to receive the army chief before he reached my gate saying to myself and others watching me, “He is coming for healing from my God.” I also would have opted to take at least some of the goods he brought and gave excuses like, “I have to take care of more than 50 souls living with me as prophet-trainees” and “What is wrong to accept gifts from somebody who obeyed the Lord for healing?”
The secret I believe was the dedicated-line Elisha had kept aside as a Prophet for communicating with God. When I mentioned ‘dedicated-line’ some of you would have understood. In IT we use this term often to refer to a line that is solely dedicated to connect to a specific source for a specific purpose. One of the quality of prophets of God should be to dedicate their lives (time and attention) solely to hear from God without sharing or disturbances. The speed of internet connectivity in the present world is increasing daily. But many years ago when internet was only common to citizens in developed countries and mainly used for military communications, the data speed of internet in many countries were poor. Sometimes we had to wait minutes before a web-page would load in our browser. Even now when we try to open many web pages (or connect to many servers) simultaneously the data speed dips. Sometimes even error messages appear saying “request timed out” or “could not connect” etc. What is the reason? When one data line is used to transfer too much data, some data are lost.
Had not Elisha heard from the master clearly he would have erred in his decisions. We may think what big deal had Elisha went out of his room to meet the army-chief or took some of those gifts. If we can read between the lines. Namaan was not only affected with leprosy outside but he had even greater leprosy inside (Pride, ego, prejudice, selfishness an so forth). God wanted to heal Namaan not just outwardly but also inwardly. When Namaan returns back home after the encounter with Jehovah through Elisha, he is going back with a child-like skin and a child-like heart. He had by then surrendered his life to worship Jehovah alone in a foreign land.
The story lingered in my memory, thoughts and emotions for a week. It was almost after a week that I was obedient to the prompting to read few chapters before and after chapter 5 in 2 Kings. I started searching the character of Elisha that made him to qualify to become the heir to the double portion anointing of great prophet Elijah. But after Elisha we don’t see any prophet from the company of prophets emerging to carry the anointing. Again my mind wondered why?
In the process of careful reading from 2Kings Chapter 1 to 8, I found out some of the indifferences in characters of the company of prophets which disqualified them from becoming the anointed prophet for the next generation.
Examples: We know how off-focused Gehazi was by going after the earthly wealth that his master Elisha rejected.
There is also a mention of a widow who came to the prophet Elisha pleading for help to save her sons from being taken captive due to huge debts. We do not know if the family have incurred the debts before the prophet-servant died or after. But how do we justify debts in the family of a prophet? (Financial discipline is very much an important character of a strong leader)
One morning, a servant of Elisha was terrified at the sight of Syrian army that encamped them. Later his eyes were opened through the prayers of Elisha.
Another mention is made of a prophet from the company who went to cut wood with borrowed weapon. His weapon (axe) slipped off his hands into the water too. (Lack of responsibility)
Another prophet went into the jungle once and brought in wild-vine and cooked some stew which caused death.
In another instance the servant-prophet was not able to bring back the widow’s son to life even with the staff of the prophet Elisha.
Even when it came to the point of total commitment and facing hardships to follow Elijah across Jordan, all the prophets withdrew except Elisha. After being in a school of prophets and in the company of great prophets why did they not learn the lessons? (Their focus was elsewhere than God and His work). Is it not the condition of the company of so called God’s servants in many Bible colleges and training centers across India today? What is the focus or outlook of the students undergoing training?
Dear prophets of the New Testament, how much more we have to be serious in managing our time to hear from God. May we not lose divine data (orders and directions from above) that is downloaded into us in the process of hooking ourselves to so many things. (Face book, orkut, emails, sms, cellphones, laptops, TV etc). We are deceiving ourselves if we are saying all these are required to sustain my family and my ministry. No….God doesn’t need any help to support His servants.
How many times have we gone off-track from the plan of God because the reply from God did not reach us in time due to congestion (busyness of life) in our bandwidth (time= 24 hours) after we waited so long making request for a direction. Having faced delay in answer how many times did we act according to human wisdom and thinking thereby missing a wholesome healing in the lives of people whom God sent to us from time to time. (read it again n again)
How fast our attention gets diverted from God and His kingdom business to the pleasures and wealth of this world. (New technologies and gadgets that appear in the market..Do that tempt us? Are we tempted to change mobiles according to the latest trends?)
How much debts are we in today due to lack of discipline?
How many time have our prayers for a miracle not been answered, but we blamed the lack of faith of the person who came for prayer?
How often do we find ourselves short of weapons to fight the devil and even those weapon that we hold slip off?
How many spiritual-murders have happened because of our wild living? (Especially the personal staff of leaders of organizations like drivers, house-helpers etc. Does the wild living of these leaders offend them?)
The bible has very few chapters and verses that is dedicated to describe the ministry of Elisha compared to other heroes like Abraham, David, Moses, Joseph etc. But if the Holy Spirit persists in challenging me through the life of this man of God, Elisha, soon would hit the top my list of biblical heroes. Truly the benefit of meditating upon God’s word can do wonders in your life. Allow God’s word to transform you. May your mind and thoughts be occupied with the word of God and His ways. Amen!
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