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Text: 2 Kings 5:1-19a
Have you ever wished God would just wave his hand over you and heal you? I certainly have. I can totally relate to the story of Naaman, a guy who thought he was “above” the way that God was telling him how he was going to be healed. A little girl, one of Naaman’s servants (listen to the sermon for the background on her too, it’s pretty interesting), told Naaman he needed to go talk to the prophet Elisha. And Elisha instructed him to get into the river Jordan, which reeked and totally cramped Naaman’s style. But once he humbled himself and did it, Gods healing came over Naaman and he was healed of leprosy.
But before he finally gets in the water, Naaman says ““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.12 Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?” So he turned and went off in a rage.” Isn’t that totally relatable? I think a lot of us can think of times in our lives where we knew God could just ‘wave His hand’ and we would be healed.
Like when your doctors, and therapists and loved ones tell you that you probably should go on anxiety medication but you are too proud to feel like you need that kind of help. Or when you feel really awful inside and you are so tired and sore and you know you’ll feel better if you exercised and ate right, but you are dismissive because surely there must be an easier way to deal with your unhealthy lifestyle. God uses all sorts of different ways to heal us, or to help us make the most of our bodies here on earth, and just because we think it might cramp our style, doesn’t mean it’s not what is ultimately best for us.
Naaman learned this from the most unlikely of people, but isn’t that just the way God works sometimes? And as we look at this proud man being humbled, I think about how following Jesus so often causes us to do things that cramp our style and humble us. God chose to heal Naaman so that he would profess that there is a true God in Israel, that he would tell all his polytheistic friends that there was only One and that he was living proof and it completely changed Naamans’ life and those around him.
For additional content, check out the latest episode of The Clearer Thinking Podcast.
-Written by Kate Tigchelaar
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