TODAY’S MEDITATION – Get rid of the spirit of Naaman (2 Kings 5:3-14)

My brother, my sister, the Lord always comes to us in His Word with a simple answer that drives us up the wall. Perhaps God has been asking you to do something beyond what is so simplistic, that it may even seem like something foolish to you. My friend, sometimes God puts us in situations where it seems like there is no answer. We try everything. We talk to all our friends, loved ones and sometimes people run to diviners, but no solution. We even try things that worked before, but in vain. Why? Because there is too much of Naaman’s character in us.

Naaman was a Syrian General. One day he woke up to find that leprosy was beginning to spread across his body. His slave girl, whom he had taken captive in one of his battles against Israel said to his wife: “If only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy” (verse 3). Then Naaman took an escort of his servants to go to the prophet Elisha who did not even come out of his house, but had his servant go out and tell him to bathe in the Jordan river to be healed. Naaman was to dip himself in seven times (verse 10). What a scandal! Naaman was furious. First, the man of God did not even pay him the courtesy to come out to talk to him but sent a messenger. Secondly, he felt insulted that he was asking him to bathe in a stinky river of Israel where he was so famous. But, what should make us reflect is what Naaman actually imagined, thought and designed. Yes, Naaman expected something miraculous to happen: “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” (verse 11) Besides, even if he was to follow the man of God’s instruction, he would have prefered to to so in other rivers, not where he was asked to do: “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?” (verse 12). As a result, Naaman refused to obey and submit to what the prophet told him, and stormed off in a rage. How many believers do that? Because they are told what does not match what they think, they leave the church!

Now, let me stress this point: one of Naaman’s servants tried to reason with him and Naaman did what Elisha had told him, and “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 like that of a young boy” (2 Kings 5:14). How many believers have missed an opportunity for God to restore them because they refused to obey and submit to “the word of the man of God”? My friend, know that while you refuse to humble yourself, you can always expect your miracle to fall from heaven like the manna. But today know that it is from your humility that comes the answer to your problem, and the answer is very simple. Naaman’s restoration came from the fact that he humbled himself and he abandoned what he had imagined, conceived and designed in his mind. He thought he had better water where he lived in Syria, but the answer was going to be in the water of Israel, where he had won many battles and certainly he would have felt ashamed of what people might say seeing him there. Stay blessed in Jesus’ name.