Articles
What Have I Done to You?
Doing the Lord’s work is hard work. Some do the Lord’s work in the church, and it is hard. Some do the Lord’s work in their home lives, and that is hard work. Some do the Lord’s work at their place of employment or in society, and that’s hard too. It’s just the nature of the work.
Elijah was well aware of this. He had served God by standing up against a king and by spending three and a half years on the run. He’d challenged the heart of a nation. And while he did this with tremendous success, proving God to be the one true God (I Kings 18:39), he was not thanked or appreciated. Rather, he faced additional persecution, as the evil queen, Jezebel desperately wanted Elijah to be killed (I Kings 19:2). Elijah finally broke. He told God, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take my life” (I Kings 19:4). We all get to that point, don’t we? Where we don’t feel like we can go another day.
It is strange to me that a prophet who begged for death would be one of only two recorded men in the history of the world who never died (II Kings 2). Regardless, when he reached his lowest point, his work on earth was nearly over. The Lord’s work, however, was not.
While Elijah begged for death, God gave him three new tasks – appoint a new king in Aram, a new king in Israel, and a new prophet who would serve as his replacement. Elijah would only accomplish one of these tasks, calling Elisha to serve as the next prophet (I Kings 19:19-21).
Upon being appointed, Elisha begged, “Please let me kiss my father and my mother, and I will follow you” (I Kings 19:20). Elijah permits him to do so, which might seem peculiar to us. After all, when Jesus called on a man to follow Him and that man asked to go back to His parents, Jesus had a very different answer. “No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God” (Lk. 9:62). I suspect that the different responses highlight the nature of the different works. Elisha would be a powerful prophet with a very important work, but his work paled in comparison to what Jesus was doing.
Actually, it is Elijah’s response to Elisha’s request that catches my attention. Unlike what Jesus did in the New Testament, Elijah permitted Elisha to go home. “Go back again, for what have I done to you” (I Kings 19:20)? Why did Elijah say this last part? What had he done to Elisha? I suppose that Elijah may only be saying that he wasn’t going to do anything to prevent Elisha from going back home to say goodbye, but I think there is a different meaning. Elijah knew better than anyone, what pain and challenges he had just brought on Elisha by appointing him as his replacement. What had Elijah done to him? Something so awful that Elijah could no longer bear it himself. At that moment, I wonder if Elijah regretted what he’d said to God.
When Elijah had begged to be done, he was finished but the work was not. The Lord’s work is never done. But what happens when we get fed up and quit? All we’ve done is cast the burden onto someone else. Naturally, I think about this from a preacher’s perspective. Many times I have heard about preachers leaving one church to go work with a different church because they are fed up with the problems they have had to face. When a preacher does that, the problem doesn’t go away, it is merely passed on to the next preacher to deal with. What has he done to the next preacher? Doesn’t that principle apply to all of us though? Whenever we get tired and want to quit, just remember that the work isn’t done. What has exhausted you will fall on someone else as their burden. What have you done to them?
When one family member gives up, it only creates more work for the other family members. When one of your co-workers quits, does the workload get easier for everyone else? Not normally.
Serving God is difficult. It is painful. It requires endurance. But it is good work. Needed work. For the sake of the good that we can do and as an act of kindness to those who would come after us, let us not grow weary and quit.
