God loves boldness in faith. Have you “asked a hard thing” of Him lately? He specializes in the impossible.
Having journeyed from Gilgal to Bethel, and from Bethel to Jericho, Elijah and Elisha came to the fords of the Jordan River, in sight of “fifty men of the sons of the prophets” who “stood facing them at a distance” (2 Ki 2:7). How many there are who live long-distance Christianity. It’s good to read missionary stories, but we should all have some stories of our own. It’s good to have people praying for us, but we need to storm the ramparts ourselves. It’s great to have helpful Bible teachers, but what has the Lord shown us lately? But now watch what happens at the river. “Elijah took his mantle, rolled it up, and struck the water; and it was divided this way and that, so that the two of them crossed over on dry ground” (v 8). Remember that Israel came through on dry ground, evidence that God brought them through. So every one of God’s people looks back to the miracle moment when the Lord opened up our way across the river of death and judgment. Now on the far side of the Jordan, Elijah asks his understudy, “What may I do for you, before I am taken away from you?” (v 9). “A double portion of your spirit,” was his request. Some say it means twice as much, and suggest Elisha performed twice as many miracles. But he was asking for the portion of the firstborn from his spiritual father. “You have asked a hard thing” (v 10), replied Elijah. But there was a way. If Elisha kept his eye on the man in the glory, it would be so. Isn’t that the same today? We, “beholding…the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Cor 3:18). And we, the “church of the firstborn” (Heb 12:23) have the double portion, too—“heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ” (Rom 8:17)!