Articles
His Will And His Alone
In 2nd Kings, we read the story of Naaman, a man healed of leprosy. The story is one that many of us can relate to, not the leprosy part, but the reluctance part. How often are we like Naaman?
He was an army commander, so not a softie. Likewise, in his position, he understood orders, that sometimes you just follow them, you don't have to understand them.
Long story short -- in his quest to be healed, the prophet Elisha sends orders to Naaman of how to cure his leprosy. He is told to dip in the Jordan river seven times. Naaman is pretty upset about several things at this point, the first being that the prophet didn't come personally with directions. Then, he was expecting something impressive or spectacular to be done by the prophet, but neither of those happened.
It took the motivation provided by his own slaves to suggest that he had nothing to lose by trying the plan, after all it was easy and simple. But Naaman had an objection to the Jordan river, because there are better rivers than the Jordan.
Now the end of the story is that he finally does as directed, and he's cleansed of his disease. But where all in his story do we see ourselves?
How often do we think like he did, how often do we have expectations that are not met, how often do we get angry, how often do we think there is better process? We can either look at this through a worldly lens or in a spiritual perspective. How often would everything just be better if we went with God's flow of things instead of resisting because it's not inline with our plans? I can only speak for me, but my answer is 'too often'.
I'm not suggesting we side with the world in it's thinking, or give up our morals or condone unrighteousness, I'm simply saying God is in control and sometimes we can look back and see where we put stumbling blocks in the path He carved out for us, and we were the ones who stumbled over them!
God has a plan for us, and we need to submit to that plan. Often He directs the physical worldly things that happen to us just as He does those things that we consider spiritual. God is in control. Let us submit to Him, on His terms, on His timeline. Let us allow Him to work in our lives as we submit in full obedience and confidence that He knows better than we do. Let us pray that His will be done, and that we see our way clearly as to what that will is.
