God's creation is ever changing, and our lives, too. Letting go of what has been and moving forward into the unknowns ahead is an exercise of faith.
Letting go of things can be hard enough, but the emotional attachments can be really tough. The grieving process enables us to progressively move through a series of rather predictable stages. Along that course, we have opportunities to become reconciled to a new situation or circumstance, letting go and moving forward.
In the passage about Elijah's call of Elisha to follow him as a prophet, we see how Elisha handles the odd manner of Elijah's outreach. He gains permission to go back and say farewell to his family and the way of life that he had come to expect. Once that was settled. Elisha moved forward in faithfulness to his calling to serve God as prophet of the Lord.
In Luke, we should pay attention to the end of chapter 9 as well as our reading from chapter 10. Here we have Luke's version of the sending of the disciples in mission. (Matthew 10 has Jesus sending the Twelve whereas Luke 10 has Jesus sending the Seventy.)
Jesus' instructions have them moving forward without any of the customary accessories of a traveler, not even sandals. They will appear simply in a garment it would seem. This spare presentation is actually a faith statement among othe rthings. It is a reflection of the new life which the disciple has received, stripped of attachments and open to true faithfulness as a witness for the Kingdom, however they're received.
Check out the whole message with the sermon video below and note the downloads below the video panel.
Letting go of things can be hard enough, but the emotional attachments can be really tough. The grieving process enables us to progressively move through a series of rather predictable stages. Along that course, we have opportunities to become reconciled to a new situation or circumstance, letting go and moving forward.
In the passage about Elijah's call of Elisha to follow him as a prophet, we see how Elisha handles the odd manner of Elijah's outreach. He gains permission to go back and say farewell to his family and the way of life that he had come to expect. Once that was settled. Elisha moved forward in faithfulness to his calling to serve God as prophet of the Lord.
In Luke, we should pay attention to the end of chapter 9 as well as our reading from chapter 10. Here we have Luke's version of the sending of the disciples in mission. (Matthew 10 has Jesus sending the Twelve whereas Luke 10 has Jesus sending the Seventy.)
Jesus' instructions have them moving forward without any of the customary accessories of a traveler, not even sandals. They will appear simply in a garment it would seem. This spare presentation is actually a faith statement among othe rthings. It is a reflection of the new life which the disciple has received, stripped of attachments and open to true faithfulness as a witness for the Kingdom, however they're received.
Check out the whole message with the sermon video below and note the downloads below the video panel.
| 07-03-16-ff-answers.pdf |
| 07-03-16-letting_go_moving_forward.pdf |