I’m going to use a text. It was God waiting. No doubt in pain. He’s set up to inherit the family business. He’s working in the family business. He’s set up pretty good. Everything’s going okay. But it’s funny how everything can be okay and you still got this inner voice saying, “Something is wrong. I don’t quite fit”. I’m talking about Elisha plowing in the field. Got a job with 12 yoke of oxen and him on the 12th. And I’m telling you that even though when we step into the scene, everything looks normal and everything looks good, normal can be so painful. Ordinary can be so painful when you are built to be extraordinary. Nobody’s torturing him. Nobody’s pulling his toenails out. Nobody’s plucking his eyes. Nobody’s doing anything to torment him except that nagging, gnawing, inner-longing craving, ravenous spirit that, “Surely, I was born for more than this”. Is there anybody here who has ever had that moment?
Is there any other crazy person in here like that? “So he departed thence, and found Elisha the son of Shaphat who was plowing with 12 yoke of oxen before him, and he with the 12th; and Elijah passed by him”. He passed by him. He passed by him. When opportunity passes by, potential powerful things can happen because all of a sudden opportunity walk past potential and all the pain of carrying unrealized passion says, “This is the moment. Pull the cord, boy. Get off the bus right here. It’s time to make the switch. Something amazing is about to happen in your life”. I don’t know who I’m talking to this morning, but I feel like I’m speaking to somebody right now and it’s going to take faith for what God is about to do in your life. It’s going to take faith for you to step into your destiny and purpose. It’s going to take faith for you to do it because you need faith to get away from the familiar.
There he is. A time factor involved with destiny. There’s a time factor involved in destiny. You don’t have your whole life to think about it because opportunity is passing by. I wish opportunity would just come along… sit back in your seat. Just sit right there. I wish it would just come along. Been a long time since your little brother sat on your lap, isn’t it? I wish opportunity would just take a seat and sit with you, but opportunity is so busy it’s gotta keep walking. And if you won’t take it, it’ll come get you. If you don’t take it, it’ll come get you. Opportunity is not going to stop until it finds a taker. Are there any takers in the house?
Elijah passed by and exposed him to something greater, and from that point on Elisha said, “Oh, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to do this plowing. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to do this plowing. I know that’s what mama had in mind. I know that’s what daddy looking out the window talking about, ‘Oh, I’m so proud of my son.'” He said, “I’m getting ready to disappoint a lot of people”. Finding your destiny will always disappoint people who have appointed you to theirs. Finding your destiny will always disappoint people who have appointed you to theirs.
Can you imagine this conversation this boy’s going to have to have with his mom and dad? “I know you gave your whole life to buy on this property and to build this property and to buy these oxen”. Oxen were expensive. “You got 12 yoke. And I know you were planning on me taking over the business, but I’m going with this guy I just met to do something I have never done in a place I have never been, performing in an area for which I have no experience at all. But I do want you to know I appreciate all that you did for me to bring me to this point that I’m at”. It must have been something like that.
Oh, God. Let’s go further in the Scripture. “And he left the oxen, and he left the oxen, and he left the oxen, and he left the oxen, and ran”. It’s one thing to leave your past and it’s another thing to run to your future. Tell somebody, “You better run”. Don’t stroll. Don’t meander. Don’t be gradual. Don’t be casual. Don’t say some day. Don’t say, “I’m fixin’ to”. No gradually moving here. Once you know where you are supposed to be, you need to run after Elijah. Run. Run. Do not walk. Do not hesitate. Do not wait on everybody to agree. Don’t wait on everybody to vote. When God exposes you to your destiny, you had better run. Run means more might. It means more effort. It means more energy. It costs more to do it. You’ve got to spend more. But run expedites the process. It’s more than walking. You’ll use more muscles. You’ll burn more fuel. You’ll expend more energy because destiny is expensive. You cannot step into a great destiny with a mediocre effort. You have to hit that thing with all of your might and all of your strength and all of your power. I don’t know who I’m talking to, but tell them run.
So Elijah had the instinct to wait while Elisha has the instinct to run. And Elisha is running and Elijah is waiting, and Elisha is running and Elijah is waiting, and Elisha is running and Elijah is waiting. And Elijah says to Elisha, “Wash my hands. Pour water on my hands. Make a campfire. Push the walls back. Set up the tent”. Can you imagine Elisha, “I didn’t leave 12 yokes of oxen to be running around pouring water on your hand”. Yes, you did. Yes, you did. Yes, you did because there’s something that you learn in the process that gives you the power to manage the promise. I’m talking about instincts. Touch somebody and say, “He’s about instincts”.
Is there anybody in this room who has come to the point that you have nothing to go back to? You have burned your oxen, burned up the plough, set the whole plough on fire, fed the community and said, “see ya”. All of this is about instincts. As I close, one of the hardest things for me to learn to rejoice in, it was very difficult, is when God shuts the door. I like to keep all doors open. I don’t like, “No,” and then God shuts the door. He shut the door. Completely shut it. But I learned that whenever God shuts a door, he opens…
So all of you who secretly grieve over shut doors, you have cried your last tear. The God that I serve whenever he shuts a door, he opens another door. And you need to know that if your destiny was in Egypt, the Red Sea wouldn’t have closed. It wasn’t so much that he closed in the Red Sea to kill Pharaoh ’cause he could have killed Pharaoh without water, but he closed up the Red Sea so that no matter how hard it got in the desert you could never go back to Egypt because the way he made for you to get out is not the way that he made for you to get back in. Slap somebody and tell them, “the door is closed”.
Now, this is what I want you to get. I want you to get this. Sit down. I’m just talking to you for a minute. I’m almost there. This is what I want you to get. If Elijah would have passed by Elisha and even tossed his mantle on him, he was still moving when he did it. If Elisha didn’t have the instinct to follow… there was no command to follow. Nobody told him to follow except his instinct. His instinct said, “This is a destiny moment. This is a destiny moment. This is a destiny moment”.
Sometimes I have guys working with me, helping me get things done, move papers, make sure everything’s pressed, everything’s ready, doing all kinds of stuff, and I watch them. Some of them will do anything you ask them to do, but nothing else. And if I have to stop and tell you everything to do, I might as well do it myself. The quickest way to get hired in a place is to volunteer because in the volunteering process we get to see your work ethic. Anybody you have to spoon-feed every command is a liability. What you want is somebody who instinctively sees something that they can contribute to the goal and they add it without command. You do not want to hire somebody on the team that you have to micromanage because you are draining your budget. The cost of you and them is being wasted in a moment you wouldn’t have to have if you hired somebody with instincts, and the only people who like to hire people you have to tell them everything to do is people with ego complexes who need to be smart by hiring…
Close your eyes for a minute and think about this. Every hell you ever went through, every bad decision, crazy person you got involved with, dead-end job you ever took, house you bought turned out to be a disaster, if you go back, there was some instinct that warned you. You had to override it just to do it. Keep your eyes closed. Every wonderful moment that happened into your life, that you didn’t even expect it to happen, it took a risk and God blessed it, there was some unction that said, “That right there. That building. That job. That’s your husband. That one right there, she’s the one. That’s your pastor. You should study this. You should go after that”. The answers that you’ve been looking all around you to get, they are not around you. They are inside of you”.