Go. Wash. Repeat.
“Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, ‘Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean.’ But Naaman became angry…”
2 Kings 15:10-11a
My better half, Stephen, would tell you this about me: I am not good with a change of plans. I’d rather go and do the thing I don’t especially want to do but have planned to do than change things last minute for something I’d prefer. Yes, I often value control and predictability so much I am willing to keep to our plans that rigidly! I’m better than I was, but it’s still a work in progress.
We often take that kind of rigidity into our relationship with God and our expectations of how He should answer our prayers. We think it should be easier than it is or, conversely, more difficult. We are used to being able to get what we want and how we want it, and we expect the same with God. We have read our Bibles, we assume we understand all that we read, and we naively, and perhaps foolishly, expect we know God.
And yet…
Take Naaman. He didn’t know God, but he knew power, politically and militarily. He was a trusted leader of the King of Aram, but he had leprosy. His wife told him of a prophet in Israel who could heal him, so he went to Israel and eventually encountered the prophet Elisha. What did Elisha say? Go. Wash. Repeat.
Well, Naaman could have done that at home! How silly and foolish to do it in the Jordan when he could have done the same in the better rivers of Damascus. His servants pointed out, though, if Elisha’s instructions had been more challenging, Naaman would have probably been happy to oblige without question. How hard was it for him to wash a few times and give it a go? So Naaman complied.
In this very simple (and, let’s be honest, very easy) act of obedience, Naaman finds healing. In trusting God’s voice through the prophet Elisha, his leprosy was taken away.
What is God inviting you to do today that you’re resisting? What have you rigidly determined should be resolved this way or that way? Where is God speaking and inviting you to “give it a go?” Perhaps in taking a small step of faith today, you’ll find God heals something of your hurt or sickness in body or heart, or even both.
