No Way

The story sounded familiar when our pastor, John Crimmins began telling it on Sunday...but only becasue I had just read in the past week or so in my readings of the Old Testament. I have to say this reading the Bible in 90 days has been a blessing beyond anything I had expected ....if you have ever the lest inclination to pursue it,,,I urge you to find a group or lead a group and do this. I know the old testament is filled with blood and guts and battles and genealogy...but truly there is a true sense of really getting to see God and getting a look at a whole picture of His yearning to be present in our lives. It is through a completely different window than just selected familiar stories that we have heard growing up...and it is quite wonderful. Sorry to get off on that but back to the story on Sunday.

It was the story of the king of Aram's commander commander who had leprosy...2 Kings 5. His name was Naaman...bands had gone out and taken a slave girl captive and she was appointed to serve Naaman. She told her mistress....if only mt master would go to see the prophet in Samaria...he would cure him of this leprosy. Namaan went to the king ...told him what she had said...and the king said go...I will write a letter to get you in the door.

And this is how the story continues:
6 The letter that he took to the king of Israel read: "With this letter I am sending my servant Naaman to you so that you may cure him of his leprosy.As soon as the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his robes and said, "Am I God? Can I kill and bring back to life? Why does this fellow send someone to me to be cured of his leprosy? See how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me!"

8 When Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his robes, he sent him this message: "Why have you torn your robes? Have the man come to me and he will know that there is a prophet in Israel." 9 So Naaman went with his horses and chariots and stopped at the door of Elisha's house. 10 Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, "Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed."

This is the part in which Naaman says "No Way" this silly little jester could make any difference.... in this huge problem.

11 But Naaman went away angry and said, "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 any of the waters of Israel? Couldn't I wash in them and be cleansed?" So he turned and went off in a rage.

13 Naaman's servants went to him and said, "My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, 'Wash and be cleansed'!" 14 So 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.

15 Then Naaman and all his attendants went back to the man of God. He stood before him and said, "Now I know that there is no God in all the world except in Israel. Please accept now a gift from your servant."

The point of the story is that Naaman was looking for a BIG thing to do to fix a BIG problem. What was ordered seemed trivial and insignificant....and made very little sense to a "commander". How could something like that work?

But it did...God demonstated His Lordship through his prophet Elisha...and on that day Naaman accepted the lord God of Israel to be His God....and he filled baskets with the soil of the place where he had found God..and brought them back with him to his homeland...so that he would have the soil on which he came to know and accept the power of the one true God.

Are you waiting for God to do something BIG in your life...or are you accepting the call for small obediences that God is asking you to comply with? Do you, or do I have a tendency to say "no way" that idea would ever work...or "no way" something so little as that would make a difference in a problem this big..Don't we assume the same attitude sometimes with prayer...thinking prayer is not enough...we have to do something bigger? Prayer is not enough....that is right...it is prayer with faithfulness that makes the true difference. That "little" bit of faith....that attaches itself to our hopes and dreams and successes...it what gives us the courage, the perseverance, and strength to keep on God's track....and trust in His goodness and LORDSHIP!

We are all wanting God to act BIG in our lives...so we can stand on that Big statement...but faith begins in believing in the small things. The small ways that God is working...the confidence that God in the small ways of our faithfulness is growing us up to be able to trust him in the big ways. The power of His Lordship is something that none of us can even imagine....we can only accept what it is God reveals to us about himself through His Holy Spirit, praise him for his continuous faithfulness to us, thank him for his provisions for us, and revel in our obedience towards Him.

Naaman had leprosy....and he lacked faith in doing the simple things....but it was finally in the "simple obedience" of what he was commissioned to do through God's prophet that cured him. What has God commissioned you to do that you are dragging your heel s on? Does it just not seem "big" enough to make a difference...it is in God's little commands that we are to be faithful to, and obedient with. We may not have a full understanding of How it will be beneficial to us personally or those around us...BUT GOD DOES. It is the small things that make up God's big statement of victory in our lives....One little step at a time.

Dear Lord, Oh how we seek the big answers to our big problems. Help us to not be so concerned about the problems that are before us but to shift our focus to knowing more about who you are and waiting for you provision and trusting in your faithfulness....and obeying what seems little in our own eyes and insignificant...For it is in those little acts of our faithfulness that you use to bring us closer to yourself. Amen