Naaman

March 4

“So Naaman went with his horses and chariots and stopped at the door of Elisha's house. Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, 'Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed.'

“But Naaman went away angry and said, 'I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than any of the waters of Israel? Couldn't I wash in them and be cleansed?' So he turned and went off in a rage.

“Naaman's servants went to him and said, 'My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, Wash and be cleansed!

“So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean as that of a young boy,” II Kings 5:9-14.

We are much like Naaman, who thought the solution to his problem required a great intervention by the hand of God as evidenced through His servant Elisha when all that was really needed was simple obedience to the word that was given.

There are great and precious promises given to us in the Scriptures, words of truth and of hope and of promise, but we trod through our lives, tackle our difficulties, bear our burdens, accept our trials without employing them into our situation.

Naaman was a foreign general, a powerful man who heard of the powerful prophet Elijah through a young Israelite slave girl who had been captured and who worked in his household. She was not even bold enough to speak to the great general herself but told his wife about the wonders that had been done through Elisha and the healing Naaman might obtain through him.

Sometimes we haven’t a direct link to the Lord and His promises, but we know someone who knows Him and employs His promises toward great ends. We go to that person with our need, hoping that through him we shall obtain our blessing.

God sometimes intervenes through His servants to pour His favor upon those who call to Him in faith believing, but sometimes He wants us to come to Him to come in our own simple faith.

However He chooses to bless the supplicant, may each seeker, “come boldly to the Throne of Grace and there find help in time of need,” Hebrews 4:16.

Let us not be like Naaman who almost missed his blessing because he had a specific idea about how the blessing should be given. Rather, let us come with “childlike faith,” Matthew 18:2-4, knowing that the One who has promised is “able to do exceeding, abundantly above all we can ask or think, according to His power at work within us,” Ephesians 3:20.