I like to hedge my bets.  I’m willing to make commitments, but I like to keep my options open as well.  However, lately I’ve been sensing God calling me to a commitment without a backout-plan.  Let me explain.  All the tendencies that I mentioned in a previous post as crucified, I know I can be tempted to try to resuscitate.  How will I resist that temptation?  For that, I learned a lesson from Elisha

So Elijah went from there and found Elisha son of Shaphat. He was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen, and he himself was driving the twelfth pair. Elijah went up to him and threw his cloak around him.  Elisha then left his oxen and ran after Elijah. “Let me kiss my father and mother goodbye,” he said, “and then I will come with you.” 

“Go back,” Elijah replied. “What have I done to you?”

So Elisha left him and went back. He took his yoke of oxen and slaughtered them. He burned the plowing equipment to cook the meat and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he set out to follow Elijah and became his servant.  1 Kings 19:19-21

Elisha, a wealthy young man with a promising future as an agronomist, burned his plow and slaughtered his oxen in a commitment that he would follow Elijah the prophet and not go back to his old life.  But how do I “burn the plow” of having secret, mixed motives, of seeking to further my own agenda instead of God’s?  I could give up doing anything in the public sphere or any kind of ministry, but I don’t think that’s the answer.  In working through this with God, it seemed to me that if I publicly confess my inner motivations, that is burning my plow.  So, in this place, I share my roasted oxen with you, my dear friends reading this.  I confess and repent of these things:  the temptation of trying to see myself as “more special” by comparing myself to others, of being wise in my own eyes, and of thinking more highly of myself than I ought.  May all those things be left as ashes.