Lessons from Naaman - Part 5

And when the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, “Am I God, to kill and to make alive, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy? Only consider, and see how he is seeking a quarrel with me.” But when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent to the king, saying, “Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come now to me, that he may know that there is a prophet in Israel.” So Naaman came with his horses and chariots and stood at the door of Elisha's house. And Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored, and you shall be clean.” But Naaman was angry and went away, saying, “Behold, I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call upon the name of the LORD his God, and wave his hand over the place and cure the leper. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?” So he turned and went away in a rage. (2 Kings 5:7-12 ESV). How often this has been repeated in countless lives through the ages! Naaman expected a miracle. He thought surely Elisha would have a magic potion to sprinkle on him, or he would wave his hand, say a few magic words, and “poof”, the leprosy would be gone. That’s the way he was used to seeing it work. That’s the way the magicians do it back home. Wash in a river? What’s that all about? Naaman wanted substance to his miracle. He wanted action. He wanted greatness, because he himself was considered great! Elisha burst his bubble when he suggested such a menial task to Naaman. I suppose it would be easy to be hard on Naaman. After all, he was a Gentile. How could we expect any more from him than this? Easy to criticize, hard to realize how similar we are to Naaman sometimes. Don’t we sometimes just want the big miracle? I mean, how hard would it be for God to just wave His hand over our problems and make everything right? He’s God isn’t He? What do you mean we have to trust Him? What do you mean we need to learn to wait on Him? What do you mean we have to continue to obey Him until something happens? We want results, and we typically want them now! Be honest for a moment this morning. Don’t you too struggle to wait on God? Aren’t you tempted to look to God as an eternal fairy godmother with magical solutions to your problems, expecting Him to grant you your every wish? Don’t you struggle to trust and obey? I do. So did Naaman. So what are we to do? Tomorrow we will see that reason and common sense prevailed for Naaman. We too must exercise common sense. God has proven himself over an over in the past as one to be trusted. Just trust him. He will indeed “work all things to good,” even when the means to that good seem rather strange!