2 Kings 2:2 · World English Bible
Elijah said to Elisha, “Please wait here, for Yahweh has sent me as far as Bethel.” Elisha said, “As Yahweh lives, and as your soul lives, I will not leave you.” So they went down to Bethel.
Whether a standard is a must or a should shows up only when someone hands you an honorable way out. An offered exit tests a commitment harder than any obstacle, because a person can take it and keep their self-image intact, telling themselves they were released rather than that they quit.
From the Self-Help reading below.
The same verse, read by one tradition.
SELF-HELP
Whether a standard is a must or a should shows up only when someone hands you an honorable way out.
An offered exit tests a commitment harder than any obstacle, because a person can take it and keep their self-image intact, telling themselves they were released rather than that they quit. He stakes his refusal on the life of Yahweh, which puts the standard somewhere he can no longer quietly lower it, and a standard that cannot be lowered stops him from recalculating his odds at every town.
Inheritance follows the standard, not the résumé. A man who accepted the reasonable release offered at Bethel would have gone home an assistant and spent the rest of his life believing the double portion was simply never offered to him.
Self-Help lens
What have you let yourself off the hook for because someone kindly gave you permission?
Krishna tells Arjuna that the work in front of him is his to do, and that walking away from it with a good explanation is still walking away. The duty does not become smaller because an exit is available.
He tells the student that if you have decided on a thing, hold to it as something settled, and not to be talked out of it by anyone offering an easier road. The decision is what carries a person past the moment it would be reasonable to stop.
The student who wants the teaching is left standing outside in the snow and told to go away, and the teaching is given only after he refuses to go. The dismissal was part of the test, not the answer.
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Self-Help