Looking Back

We have all made the third man's request and thought it modest. We are not asking to go back. We want the afternoon, and the door left on its hinges at the end of it.

Two men on that road have already been answered hard when the third speaks. Lord, I will follow thee; but let me first go bid them farewell, which are at home at my house. The answer is exact. No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God. A light wooden plough is steered by the eye. Turn your head and the line bends, and stays bent until harvest.

Now put Elisha beside him. The wording is nearly identical. Elijah's mantle had just landed on him at the plough. Let me, I pray thee, kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow thee. He went, and was not refused. Then he killed the oxen and cooked them over the wood of the plough, and nobody in that village wondered whether he would be back. So Luke lays down no rule about goodbyes. One man went home to end something. The other went to keep a way back open.

Which puts us with the third man. Our oxen are alive. The old employer's number, the friendship ended in words and not in fact, the person we could go back to being: we call them wisdom and will not call them what they are, and the furrow shows it.

The line was never held straight by our steadiness, though. The mantle fell on a man who had asked nobody to come, and he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. Nothing behind you is worth the turn of your head, and nothing behind you is strong enough to turn it.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 122 is Inescapable Presence (Psalm 139:7-10).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna, Year Two