Burn Your Contingency Plan
A few months ago, I was reading a devotion, Get Rid of Your Contingency Plan. In it, they referenced Alexander the Great, an ancient leader who was instrumental in helping spread Christianity in the Eastern and Middle Eastern world. Nice devotion, now go to work.
A day or two later, I’m listening to the radio on the way to work, and the… whatever disc jockeys are called now, since they don’t play “discs/albums”… asked the question, “What do you do when you’re not where you were and you’re not where you want to be?” The answer – keep moving forward, don’t go back.
A few days later, I’m reading The Greatest Miracle, by Og Mandino. In this particular section I’m reading, he references Alexander the Great and not going back.
History records that Alexander the Great took his lesser-numbered army, loaded up their boats, and traveled across the sea to face another army, a much bigger army. When Alexander arrived with his army and all the men had come off the boats, he took a torch and set fire to the boats. He knew that if his army had the chance, during the battle, if things looked bleak and lost, his army would return to the ships to go home.
After burning the ships, he turned and faced his men and said, “We’re going to go up and fight, we’re going to win, and when we leave this place, we’re sailing home in their boats.” He got rid of their contingency plan.
Maybe you’re asking questions – hard questions. You’re new to the faith and you haven’t quite got a handle on how you’re supposed to act now, and you don’t feel like you have many friends, and God is more stories than relationship. You’re lonely, and you remember the days when you had more friends and life seemed easier (until it didn’t, and you decided to try a new way), and being in the bar late at night seemed easier than getting up to go to church. I don’t have all your answers in a newsletter, but I can tell you: DO NOT go back.
Or maybe you’re new to this thing called tithing, and you’ve tried it a few times, and it’s been a few months, and you still haven’t won the lottery, and you haven’t seen the promotion/raise at work yet, and you have no idea if the seed in the ground is doing anything, and you’re wondering if any of this is real or just made up. Now you’re asking the question – do I stop and go back to what I did before? The answer is NO!
Trust me – burn your contingency plan. Whatever you’re going through, or whatever ideas you have about the past, that’s not where your future is.
When the Israelites left Egypt, there was this small pond they had to cross called the Sea of Reeds (the Red Sea). It was finding a way over or going back into slavery. So, the people griped and complained and asked if they should have stayed slaves. Now, there is a LOT to unpack with that story, and I won’t go into it all here, but one of my favorite verses comes next, Exodus 14:14: “The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” Being still means not going back.
Moses cries out to God. God says, “Why are you crying out to me? Lift up your staff, reach out your hand, and divide the sea.” You know the rest… They went forward.
Or maybe you’re past the point of feeling like you’ve escaped the chains of your past. BUT – and there are buts in life – but you haven’t entered the promise yet. Let’s FF to another small creek. This time it’s the Jordan. Same scenario: the past on one side, God’s future for your life on the other. And getting to the other side is going to require some obedience. You have a choice.
Go forward to your blessings or go back to the past. If you’re a fan of The Shawshank Redemption, Andy Dufresne said it this way: “Get busy living, or get busy dying.” He knew staying where he was would be one long, meaningless life, and he wanted to escape the chains. He knew he was innocent.
Is that what’s holding you back? You keep diving into the guilt when, all the while, God is calling you righteous and innocent and blameless? You can go back to the same past that had you asking, “Where is God?”, “What is my future?”, “Why am I spinning my wheels?” Or, you can move forward.
Elijah placed his mantle on Elisha. Elisha’s response? He burned his contingency plan. Literally. He took the plow – imagine the amount of wood it took to yoke 12 oxen and the size of the plow it took to harness those oxen. He made a fire – a big one, I’m guessing – and he slaughtered the oxen and made dinner. Then he said goodbye to his family – for several years.
Neither history nor Jewish tradition has an exact amount of time, but if one examines the events around the time Elijah was commanded to anoint Elisha and what happened after he went to heaven, it was a period of several years, with some reconstructions having it roughly 6 to 10 years.
Imagine knowing you are going to take a job overseas. No cell phones, no media, no FedEx or UPS or postal service. Having a contingency plan to come back and see your family if the job doesn’t work out sounds like wisdom. Sounds perfect. Well, that all depends on how you look at it.
Plow oxen for the rest of eternity – or get a double portion of God’s anointing.
You see, oftentimes what calls us back – the reason we want a contingency plan – is because we haven’t set our sights on what’s ahead. But Moses did look forward – the promise (and not being a slave anymore). Joshua did – the promise (and not wandering around in the desert any longer). Alexander did – winning the battle (and likely not sitting around wondering when some army would land on his shores looking for a fight). And Elisha did – the promise of a double portion (and not walking around for the rest of his life staring at ox butt and getting pooped on).
Don’t go back – DO look forward.
Define your promise. Define what God has offered you in exchange for your past. Define Isaiah 61: what ashes look like and define what a garland of beauty looks like. Define mourning and define what the oil of gladness looks like. Define what a heavy spirit feels like and define what a cloak of praise looks like.
My guess is, once you’ve done that, you’ll burn your contingency plan.
Ron Walters
