AP

2 Kings 2:15-18    The company of the prophets from Jericho, who were watching, said, “The spirit of Elijah is resting on Elisha.”  And they went to meet him and bowed to the ground before him.  “Look,” they said, “we your servants have fifty able men.  Let them go and look for your master.  Perhaps the Spirit of the LORD has picked him up and set him down on some mountain or in some valley.”  “No,” Elisha replied, “do not send them.”  But they persisted until he was too embarrassed to refuse.  So he said, “Send them.”  And they sent fifty men, who searched for three days but did not find [Elijah].  When they returned to Elisha, who was staying in Jericho, he said to them, “Didn’t I tell you not to go?”

The account of the handing over of the prophet’s role from Elijah to Elisha, and the paranormal departure of Elijah, is ‘interesting’, and some of the details are not easy for us to get our heads around.

But two things are clear: the ‘student’ was extremely anxious about losing his trusted master and mentor; and, nevertheless, the student was fully committed to accepting that ‘whatever God ordains is right’, even if he was challenged by God’s strange providence in the process.

We have much to learn from Elisha’s attitude in all this whenever we are challenged by God’s providence in our lives.  It’s worth reading through all the words of the Samuel Rodigast/Keith Getty song for encouragement (and challenge!):

“Whate’er my God ordains is right, his holy will abideth: I will be still whate’er he does and follow where He guideth.  He is my God though dark my road; he holds me that I shall not fall – and so to him, I leave it all, and so to him, I leave it all.  

“Whate’er my God ordains is right, he never will deceive me; he leads me by the proper path, I know he will not leave me.  I take, content, what he has sent; his hand can turn my griefs away and patiently I wait his day, and patiently, I wait his day.

“Whate’er my God ordains is right though now this cup, in drinking, may bitter seem to my faint heart – I take it all, unshrinking.  My God is true, each morn anew, sweet comfort yet shall fill my heart and pain and sorrow shall depart, and pain and sorrow shall depart.

“Whate’er my God ordains is right: here shall my stand be taken, though sorrow, need, or death be mine, yet I am not forsaken.  My Father’s care is ’round me there, he holds me that I shall not fall and so to him, I leave it all, and so to Him, I leave it all.”

– Bruce Christian