Many times, we have preconceived ideas about how things should or could happen…how our prayers should be answered for example. When these expectations are not met, we tend to doubt and wonder why…
2 Kings 5: 1-27 tells about a man named Naaman, a prominent captain under the king of Syria. Naaman was considered a man of valor, but he suffered from leprosy. The Syrians had captured a young maid and put her to work as an aide to Naaman’s wife. The maiden mentioned that in Samaria there was a prophet that could cure Naaman, if only he were there.
Naaman went to the king and told him what the young maid had said. The king told him, “Go to. Go, and I will send a letter to the king of Israel.”
Naaman went with the letter, ten talents of silver, six thousand pieces of gold and ten changes of raiment. When he presented the letter to the king of Israel, the king became upset and tore his clothes. “Am I God?” he asked, that can kill and make alive, that this king would ask me to heal a man of leprosy?”
When Elisha, the prophet, heard about the king tearing his clothes he sent a message advising the king to send the man to him. “And he shall know there is a prophet in Israel.”
2 Kings, 5:9 So Naaman came with his horses and with his chariot, and stood at the door of the house of Elisha.
Elisha sent a messenger who told him, “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh will come again to you and you will be clean.”
This made Naaman angry and he went away fuming. He said to his servants, “I thought surely that he would come out to me and call on the name of his God, wave his hand over the place and heal the leper! Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Can I not wash in them and be clean?”
Finally, one of his servants asked, “If the prophet had asked you to do something great, wouldn’t you have done it? All he asked of you is to wash and be clean.”
So Naaman went down and dipped himself seven times in the river Jordan…and his flesh became again as that of a little child. He was clean.
He then returned to Elisha and told him, “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth, but the one in Israel.”
God works miracles and answers prayers in His way and in His time. It is said that with God a day is like a thousand years. When Jesus walked among the people, He also, answered prayers and performed miracles in His (God’s) way. In Matthew 8, He healed a man of leprosy just by touching him. Later, he healed two blind men simply by touching their eyes. Ten lepers called for healing and He told them to go and show themselves to the priests…they were healed along the way. John: 9 tells us that to heal another blind man, Jesus took clay and placed it on his eyes then told him to go and wash in the pool of Siloam. When he did this, his sight was restored.
Matthew 19: tells the story of a young man who asked Jesus what he should do to have eternal life. Jesus told him to follow God’s Commandments. “All these things I’ve done from my youth,” he said. “What else do I lack?”
Jesus told him to go and sell all he had and give to the poor and he would have treasure in heaven. But when the young man heard this, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
Naaman got angry when Elisha did not ask God to heal him immediately, as he thought he would. Had he not listened to his servant, and obeyed, he would not have been healed.
Isaiah 55: 6-8 Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near. 7 Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. 8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.
