Collaboration- Intergenerational Relationships

One of my favorite portions of scripture is 2 Kings 13:14-19. I really love that passage so much and I get inspired each time I meditate on it.

“Elisha had become sick with the illness of which he would die. Then Joash the king of Israel came down to him, and wept over his face, and said, “O my father, my father, the chariots of Israel and their horsemen!”

15 And Elisha said to him, “Take a bow and some arrows.” So he took himself a bow and some arrows.

16 Then he said to the king of Israel, “Put your hand on the bow.” So he put his hand on it, and Elisha put his hands on the king’s hands.

17 And he said, “Open the east window”; and he opened it. Then Elisha said, “Shoot”; and he shot. And he said, “The arrow of the Lord’s deliverance and the arrow of deliverance from Syria; for you must strike the Syrians at Aphek till you have destroyed them.”

18 Then he said, “Take the arrows”; so he took them. And he said to the king of Israel, “Strike the ground”; so he struck three times, and stopped.

19 And the man of God was angry with him, and said, “You should have struck five or six times; then you would have struck Syria till you had destroyed it! But now you will strike Syria only three times.”

There was a clear problem that the Elisha generation could not solve. The problem transcended Elisha and was inherited by Joash who was of GenerationNext. Elisha was a father figure but Joash consulted him for wisdom. Elisha was on his death bed but he wasn’t considered useless.

Elisha had a key to solving the problem even though he didn’t have the strength. He knew the right strategy to overcome that challenge but he wasn’t going to be the one to carry it out. His time was up.

Elisha guided the young man. He told him specific things to do. Elisha put his hands on the young man’s hands. That’s a picture of guidance and direction. He directed him to open the East window- not just any window.

Any other window apart from the East window would have been wasted efforts. It would have led to frustration.

Then Elisha gave the command and the king obeyed. He specifically asked him to strike the ground. Not the air. Not the wall. The ground.

We can say Joash succeeded where the previous generation failed- though he also achieved limited success because he struck just 3 times. His success however could not have been possible without the assistance of the father- the generation before.

No generation is useless. No generation can also truly be successful on their own. They need to learn from generations before by consulting history. They need to truly be humble like Joash and accept that even though they are smart, they don’t have the solution to all problems.

They need to submit their hands to be guided by fathers. They may excel in strength but they can do with some more wisdom. They can shoot arrows but they need to know the direction to shoot.

The humbling part of the story is that Joash too didn’t fully solve the problem. He handed it to the next generation. But now he was wiser. I guess he told the next generation, “Don’t shoot thrice. Shoot as many times as possible”.

“The glory of young men is their (physical) strength. And the honour of aged men is their gray head (representing wisdom and experience)- Proverbs 20:29 AMP

Bayo Adeyinka

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