Jeremy L. Berg

Another excerpt from my series/book Spirit on the Water, this time exploring Elijah and Elisha’s mentoring relationship.

Photo by Jehyun Sung on Unsplash

We all long for a spiritual father or mother to lead us, empower us, and release us into our destiny. Most of us had parents who weened us physically, but many of us have lived our lives as spiritual orphans. We haven’t had an Elijah figure to mentor us, and pass on his spirit to us. 

Without a close spiritual mentor, many end up imitating the people around us, comparing ourselves and our lives to other’s Facebook profiles, and following the latest lifestyle trends and adopting arbitrary worldly measurements of success. 

We all know that Christians are all called to imitate Jesus, and follow His example, but we honestly don’t think about him much during our daily routines. For many, He’s out of sight, out of mind. When it comes to living out our faith day to day, we are perhaps being led by certain foundational beliefs and Christian principles under the surface. 

Yet, deep down we know, and God knows, that we need CONCRETE examples we can see, real flesh-and-blood role models we can fix our eyes on who embody Christ’s teachings and values. We personal inspirations to lead us through the nitty gritty grime of ordinary life and into the awesome expansiveness of the Good Life, the Kingdom Life, the Abundant life we discussed last time.

We get a powerful glimpse of a mentor/mentee relationship in Elijah and Elisha in 2 Kings 2. Let me do a little creative midrash on this fascinating story, and whet all our appetites for the goodness  and growth that can from seeking out worthy mentors and role models to lead us deeper into the power and Spirit of God.  

The goal of discipleship, and a mentor/mentee relationship is beautifully summed up in verse 9 and 10. Picture a scene of an old, wise sage on his death bed (or in this case, awaiting a mysterious chariot of fire to whisk him away), turning to his beloved disciple, his spiritual son, and asking: 

“What can I do for you before I’m taken from you? Ask anything.” Elisha said, “Your life repeated in my life. I want to be a holy man just like you.” (2 Kings 2:9-10)

Isn’t this precious? This begs the question: Do we have someone in this life whose life we want to download and make operative in our own life? Whose habits and values, whose character and life do we aspire to imitate?

In this classic story in 2 Kings 2:1-15, let me mention 3 lessons about mentor/mentee relationships:

1. Disciples keep their eyes fixed on their mentor.

In a humorous scene of trifold repetition, we find the master Elijah trying to run three errands but Elisha won’t leave his side and insists on coming along. Each time Elisha tells his mentor, “Not on your life! I’m not letting you out of my sight!” This is the posture of a faithful disciple: always observing, watching, eyes fixed on the way one’s mentor lives, loves, works and plays. Watching them in marriage, in parenting, in conflict and hardship. Never letting them out of their sight.

At the end of the account Elisha will receive a double dose of Elijah’s powerful spirit for his own life and ministry only if he doesn’t take his eyes off Elijah until the very end:

10 "If you’re watching when I’m taken from you, you’ll get what you’ve asked for. But only if you’re watching.” (2 Kings 2:10)

Spiritual fathers and mothers show us how to be faithful all the way to their last breath. They not only live well, but they die well. They finish the race God has set before them in a way that honors God and inspires others. 

2. Mentors take you places you need to go to learn lessons you need to grow. 

So, Elisha insists on following his mentor to three places: Bethel, Jericho, and the Jordan River. What is the significance of these places in the biblical narrative? What lessons might a mentor teach his/her mentee in each?

Bethel is where Jacob felt lost and abandoned by God, but in the dream of a ladder from heaven to earth, woke to the reality that, “God has been here the entire time! This is bet el (Bethel), the “house of God.” We all need a spiritual guide who can help us learn to see God’s presence and activity in our lives even when He seems distant.

Jericho is where we go to learn that God goes before us to fight our battles and He has the power to break down the spiritual walls that keep us from reaching spiritual maturity. We need mentors to teach us to trust God, and stop trusting ourselves.

Jordan River is where we’re taught how to live more fully into our new identity and inheritance as God’s children in the Promised Land of God’s abundance. Spiritual mentors remind us who we are, and who’s we are when we are so prone to forget. God help the person who doesn’t have someone playing this role.  

3. Mentors empower you to overcome your obstacles.

Elijah took his cloak, rolled it up, and hit the water with it. The river divided and the two men walked through on dry land. (2 Kings 2:8)

Next, Elisha stands by the Jordan, staring at the watery obstacle in search of a way across. Elijah strikes the water with his cloak and makes a way for Elisha. What does Elijah’s cloak represent here? 

• His spiritual authority
• His spiritual power
• His Spiritual wisdom and insight
• His spiritual faithfulness and favor with God

A godly spiritual mentor may have spiritual resources you lack; spiritual wisdom and insight gained over time; authoritative word or teaching that just buzzes with God’s power. They can open doors for us and help us reach new heights in our walk with God.

Jesus, of course, exuded this kind of authority in his teachings, and we are told that the people who heard him and saw him minister “were amazed at his teaching, for he taught with real authority—quite unlike their teachers of religious law” (Matt 7:28-29).

One specialized form of mentorship or guidance comes from spiritual counselors and therapists. I can’t tell you how thankful I am for the sage wisdom and Spirit-guided insights I gained in my two weeks with Kelly Gray at Restoring the Soul last fall. She rolled up the cloak, and struck the stormy waters of my soul, and helped lead me through fears and strongholds, over obstacles and into a newer more spacious place in my soul. We all need spiritual mentors with these divine gifts to help us overcome our obstacles.

4. Mentors lead you on the narrow Way.

Finally, let’s ponder the meaning of the Narrow Way Elijah’s cloak makes through the river. Jesus is blunt about this when he says (and I paraphrase): “There’s an easy, wide road of little resistance that most people are traveling on through life, and it leads to nowhere good. But there’s a narrow way to Kingdom life that is hard and requires work and devotion, self-sacrifice and self-growth, and few take it.” 

Many well-meaning voices in our lives try to spare us pain and trials, and point us in ways that go around the work necessary for real growth. They mainly want to help us find peace and happiness, while God wants us to become spiritually mature and cultivate Christ like character. Happiness is never the goal in God’s Kingdom, but a blessed byproduct that comes when we keep ourselves pursuing God’s priorities.

So, we need spiritual mentors and godly leaders who will faithfully and continually point us down the narrow cross-shaped path. I like the picture of Elijah leading Elisha across the Jordan, either single-file, not getting ahead on one’s leader, or else side-by-side, shoulder to shoulder as a unified team.

May we all find someone who carries such a cloak of spiritual wisdom and power, and may we all choose to heed those who are pointing us down the road less traveled! Those who don’t, sadly, will often find themselves forever standing before those familiar obstacles, staring at an impassable river and never finding their way to the other side—to freedom, to the abundant life God on the other side.

Conclusion

After Elijah is taken up in the chariot of fire, we read:

Then he picked up Elijah’s cloak that had fallen from him, returned to the shore of the Jordan, and stood there. He took Elijah’s cloak—all that was left of Elijah!—and hit the river with it, saying, “Now where is the God of Elijah? Where is he?” When he struck the water, the river divided and Elisha walked through.The guild of prophets from Jericho saw the whole thing from where they were standing. They said, “The spirit of Elijah lives in Elisha!” (2 Kings 2:13-15)

Finally, the story ends with Elijah’s strange departure, and Elisha taking up his mentor’s mantle. The guild of prophets looking on clearly see that the disciple has become like his master, as Elisha now strikes the water and it divides. The holy man’s remarkable spirit and ministry will now live on for another generation through Elisha. The student has become the master.

I only recently found my own spiritual fathers and mentors, and I regret all the years I have tried to navigate life and faith and ministry without. Let me invite you to humbly pray, right now, that God would bring an Elijah into your life. No matter how old or young you are, it’s never too late to seek out a mentor to fix your eyes on, to lead you to the places you need to go to learn the lessons you need to grow, who can help you overcome your obstacles and point you down the Narrow Way.