Burning my plow

I Kings 19:21 [Elisha] took his yoke of oxen and slaughtered them.  He burned the plowing equipment to cook the meat… Then he set out to follow Elijah and became his servant.

This seems like such a drastic measure for Elisha to take when he decided to follow God’s calling to work with Elijah as an assistant prophet.  As a farmer by trade, the oxen and plowing equipment represented a valuable part of life.  So why take such a drastic measure?  Someone else could have used them, even if Elisha did not.  This has always puzzled me until today as I thought more about this incident, and realized that perhaps Elisha needed to make a “clean break” with what constituted security for himself in order to help him remember his commitment to Elijah and to God.  He had to burn that plow.  When things would become difficult the temptation to return to the easier ways can become overpowering.  But there were no oxen nor was there any plowing equipment to go back to.  This act was Elisha helping himself remain committed to his new calling.  He was convinced that this was God’s calling on his life and he was doing everything in his power to keep himself true to that commitment.  When he burned the plow he also sacrificed the oxen as an outward sign of his commitment to follow God’s leading, and this act of worship and commitment I am sure was a significant event for him to look back on when the going got tough and the temptation came to quit.  I have seen some of that same principle working in my own life, thinking particularly of the day I had to leave Lebanon due to the civil war and settle into a new life and new ministry in Jordan with nothing of the old life to carry with me except that suitcase of clothing and books.  It was a difficult act at the time, but God was in it, as I was able to see later.  I did not realize it at the time, but leaving everything (including the people I had been working with and the work that was so meaningful to me, not to speak of my earthly belongings) behind in Beirut was my burning of my plow.  It has turned out to have been one of the most significant events of my life, so I can understand how significant this may have been for Elisha not just at the time, but also perhaps throughout the remainder of his life.