Wash and Be Cleansed

“Wash and be cleansed’!” 2 Kings 5:13

Naaman was a highly regarded, valiant army commander of the King of Aram, but he was a leper! A little slave girl, captured in a raid of Israel, told the wife of Naaman that the master would be healed if he presented himself to the prophet in Samaria.

So Naaman with a full retinue and presents for the King of Israel went to Elisha. But Elisha did not even meet with him! Elisha just sent a messenger to instruct him that he should wash 7 times in the Jordan. “And your flesh will heal,and you will be clean,” Elisha's messenger told him.

Naaman went off angrily! He had a lot of expectations about what the man of God should do! “I thought he would surely come out and invoke the Lord His God..." It was a good thing that his servants reasoned with him, “If the prophet would have told you to do something extraordinary, wouldn't you have done it?" So Naaman swallowed his pride and did as the prophet told him. And he was healed!!!

Lesson number 1: Even if we are a lowly slave girl, we can be a messenger of hope and healing. Perhaps we are too afraid of our boss to speak to him or her about  something he or she needs to hear? Perhaps we prefer to just be silent even if we know something that would greatly ease another's burden? Let us always speak out with courage words of life and truth. This world filled with despair and darkness needs to hear it. 

Lesson number 2: Obedience may bring us to a closer encounter with God. What is it that God is asking of us? Sometimes when God does not fit into the box we made for Him, like Naaman, we can be so adamant, proud and unwilling to see things from God's point of view!!!  Let us not allow our expectations of how God should act or who God will use to speak to us be a hindrance to what God wants to do for us, and through us!