Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master and in high favor, because by him the Lord had given victory to Syria. He was a mighty man of valor, but he was a leper. Now the Syrians on one of their raids had carried off a little girl from the land of Israel, and she worked in the service of Naaman’s wife. She said to her mistress, “Would that my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.” So Naaman went in and told his lord, “Thus and so spoke the girl from the land of Israel.” And the king of Syria said, “Go now, and I will send a letter to the king of Israel.”
So he went, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten changes of clothing. And he brought the letter to the king of Israel, which read, “When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you Naaman my servant, that you may cure him of his leprosy.” 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. But his servants came near and said to him, “My father, it is a great word the prophet has spoken to you; will you not do it? Has he actually said to you, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” So he went down and dipped himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God, and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean. (2 Kings 5:1-14)
I Won’t Do That: Will We Trust God’s Simple Solutions?
2 Kings 5:1-14
The other day Lisa and I were discussing this passage and she said, “That reminds me of the story of the man who thought God was going to save him from the flood.” That little comment sparked the memory of that familiar anecdote. If you’ve heard it before, it probably did for you too. If not, it goes something like this: An announcement rang out that the river had burst its banks and flood waters were rising and everyone needed to evacuate. One man stayed behind, believing God would save him. The waters rose and the man climbed on top of his kitchen table to stay dry and a man in a rescue boat came by, offering to carry him to safety. “No thank you; God is going to save me.” The next day he had to climb on top of his roof to escape the flood waters, but when the second rescue boat came by, his response was the same. The Lord would save him. The following day, the man was soaked, standing on the very top of his chimney to try and stay out of the rising flood waters when a helicopter dropped a rope and a man called out to him, instructing him to tie the rope around his chest and be pulled to safety. “The Lord will save me!” he shouted, waving the rescuers away. The man drowned. Standing before the Lord, he admitted, “God, I’m a little disappointed. I bore witness to three different people that I had faith that you would save me, and you didn’t.” To that the Lord replied, “I sent you two boats and a helicopter.”
That story has resonance as we read Naaman’s tale and consider how he almost missed a great experience of healing, because the packaging didn’t come the way he expected it. How many times do we miss out on God’s kingdom purpose for our lives because we’re looking for God’s movement in the grandiose, public, exciting, and fancy displays of life, while He’s revealing Himself in the poor, lonely, and unfortunate soul we just ignored? How many times do we miss opportunities to grow into what God has called us to be because we fail to heed the simple instructions God has laid out so clearly for us in His word? Will we love as we’ve been loved? Will we serve as Christ came to serve? Will we forgive as we’ve been forgiven? Will we learn to trust God’s simple solutions, or will we keep looking for “silver bullet” fixes that disregard the way God tends to work in the world? Will we head back to Syria to wash in one of those beautiful, non-healing streams or will we heed the words of the prophet, no matter how foolish they sound, and scrub up seven times in the muddy Jordan River (or whatever that looks like where we live today)? This encounter between Elisha and Naaman reminds us that God’s way might just be crazy enough to work!