The story of Naaman
Naaman was the commanding general of the Syrian army, a man of great influence and immense importance. He was well respected with his numerous military conquests as well as being the military advisor to King Ben-Hadad. His presence demanded respect, and he earned it through his brilliant execution and the sheer power that he was able to wield with but a word. Put in modern terms, having Naaman visit was much like having the one of the popular athletes of a successful sports team of today come visit. The people were in awe of this man’s power.
But, all of his power and influence was being threatened. There was a real possibility of him having his status stripped away because of a skin blemish. People did not want to be near anyone who had any visible disease. Many considered it unclean and segregated the sick into isolation. In Israel, separate colonies of people were set up to bear the brunt of leprosy and every other kind of visible skin illness. In other words, this disease would move him from the most respected circles of society, to become an outcast shunned by many. He had the equivalent of HIV or AIDS and tried everything to remove the Leprosy.
This is the man who came to see Elisha. He had tried various treatments, but nothing had worked. Instead, under the advice of a little slave girl, he came to see the holy man of Israel. He expected to be treated with the respect and fanfare due his office.
But instead of finding the red carpet rolled out welcoming his arrival, he was greeted with a messenger and told to go jump in a lake. Elisha didn’t even come out to say hello! Instead, he sent a messenger out to Naaman with instructions to cleanse himself in the Jordan river seven times. Intentionally or not, it’s as if he was told “You’re so dirty and unclean! Not only will I not come outside to see you, but I want you to bathe in a dirty, muddy and detestable water.” He was being humiliated and treated as unclean and unacceptable. This is NOT what Naaman was expecting.
Instead, he was deeply offended! After being treated this way, he didn’t want to follow the advice of this mere messenger. He was willing to pay a huge amount of money and perform any number of outlandish activities. But to wash himself in a filthy river just seemed like too much to bear. Where was the red carpet? Where was the greeting party? Where were the escorts? Insulted and outraged, he was not going to be humiliated further by this mere priest! He would go home without following the directions.
Pride got in the way. Naaman was willing to live with his disease and live in his dishonor rather than embarrass himself further. He wanted to be greeted and treated like the important person he was, not humiliated and dunked in the dirty Jordan River. It took a servant of his to convince him to set aside his pride and obey the directions of Elisha. Through the words of this lowly servant girl, he agreed to try, and complied with the orders of Elisha.
God Speaks to Us in Different Ways
Dipping in the Jordan River was nothing short of bowing down to the will of God. Elisha was known as a faithful man. He was known to speak prophecies that came true. Naaman was well aware of this and chose to listen to what Elisha had to say. Whatever he had to say, it surely came from the authority of God Himself. He knew that there was something to this man. Through the advice of his servant girl, he submitted to the words of Elisha. In doing so, he submitted to the will of God. Through this simple act of submission, he was cleansed of his self-righteousness and purged of his pride. In the process, he was cleansed of his disease. By allowing himself to bow down to the power of God, he was able to relish in the benefits of good health. Had he kept his attitude of defiance, he would have never realized the healing miracle that took place.
God spoke to Naaman through his humble servant Elisha. Where the powerful Syrian was looking for a way to be healed, he received a potent healing miracle, but only by listening to what God had to tell him. It was more than just listening and obeying. It was setting aside his ego.
After all, the advice he received was not what exactly he wanted to hear. He brought money along to buy his healing. But, the healing was not for sale. He was prepared to go through any number of ceremonial procedures or rituals. But, he wasn’t prepared to embarrass himself or put himself to shame. He wasn’t looking to get muddied up to reach his goal. He was looking for a more comfortable way to be healed.
But, comfort wasn’t part of God’s equation. He was willing to heal Naaman, if he was willing to humble himself and submit to one more powerful than himself. He was willing to grant Naaman’s request, but on God’s terms, not the terms of any man.
God chose to speak to him through the advice of Elisha, the delivery of a messenger and the submission of dunking in a dirty river seven times. The message was loud and clear. I am God, the all powerful. I will choose to work through whatever means I choose. I will heal your wounds, but only if you surrender to my rules.
Loud and clear, God is in control, not man, not Elisha, not Naaman. Loud and clear, God’s message came through. Loud and clear God spoke to Naaman. The message to us is equally clear; God doesn’t always talk to us in the way we would expect. Sometimes, he diverts our attention to give a lesson or bring us to some realization.
Let’s take a look at a similar situation. Many of you may be familiar with a movie filmed a few years ago called “The Matrix.” This movie was about people that lived in a computer generated universe known as the matrix. Most of the people didn’t realize that the world they saw was computer generated. The few that did, wanted to free the people from the control of computers and back to the real world. But, the computers had an incredible control over those in the matrix. To rescue people from this digital universe, they would need a savior of sorts. They would need “The One” to save them.
As the movie progressed, Neo, the main character, was believed to be The One and was brought to see the Oracle to get advice on what he should do. She explained to Neo that he was not the one that everyone was searching for. This simple advice led him to believe that he was not the savior everyone was looking for. The realization that he was not The One allowed him to place himself at risk. But, this risk brought him down a path which eventually showed him that he really was the One. The Oracle told Him what He needed to hear so that Neo would do He needed to do. She told him what he needed to hear so that he could eventually become The One in mind as well as action.
In some ways, God is kind-of like the Oracle of the Matrix. He may lead us down a path that we don’t expect so that we end up in His plan rather than our own. We may be diverted in an unexpected direction.
I once offered to be a listening ear to a gentleman I had never met before. I felt compelled to talk to him and make myself available to discuss his situation. The man was a bit taken back as he his mother had just recently become sick. He was unsure of how she would do or how he would find the money to pay for her care. Through the next few months, we became very close friends and he later confided to me that he was considering suicide. I was shocked to find out that this simple gesture of kindness he credited with saving his life. He said that had I not entered his life at that moment, he probably wouldn’t be around today. God speaks to us in interesting ways and directs us in ways we might not realize until well after the fact.
Perhaps God speaks to you in a similar way to help those around you. Perhaps God asks you to do something that you really don’t want. Perhaps you can reap the benefits of healing, happiness or even spiritual development by just following his voice. Naaman realized all of these when God spoke to him.
God Wants us Humble, not Haughty
In addition to God wanting us to listen, He also wants us to be humble rather than haughty. Similar to Naaman, there are times that we have expectations of being treated in a certain way. We feel that as faithful Christians, we have certain rights and privileges. We may even feel that we’re superior to others because we’ve seen a Bible once or twice. In our own way, we may be filled with pride, arrogance and conceit. The truth of the matter is, we’re sinners just like everyone else. We have all disobeyed God.
It comes down to this: submission to the will of God, His rules and His standards. You see, God requires us to do exactly what he tells us to do, not close-enough or approximately what He asks, but perfect obedience.
As sinners, we struggle with that absolute standard. In some cases, we search for a loop-hole rather than bow down in obedience to His will. We can’t stand the idea that we just might be doing something wrong, so we try to justify our actions and life-style rather than change our bad habits.
Where do these attitudes get us? No-where but in a jam. They can’t rescue us from disaster or save us from ourselves. In fact, pride is one of the most destructive forces because it triggers so many unfortunate events. Pride gets us away from listening to that little voice in our head that says “don’t do that.” Take a look at this true story of pride in action.
On the evening of August 31, 1986, the Soviet cruise liner Admiral Nakhimov (Nak-him-off) set sail from Novorossiysk (Novo-ross-ee-yesk) on the Black Sea. The 575-foot passenger liner was the flagship of the Black Sea cruise fleet and was carrying over 1,200 people on its voyage. Shortly after 11 p.m., the 50,000-ton freighter Pyotr Vasev (Pe-yo-ter Vah-sev) was spotted on a collision course with the cruiser liner. Marine safety workers warned the freighter that it was on a collision course, but the freighter’s captain failed to take evasive measures. At 11:20 p.m., when many passengers had already gone to bed, the freighter struck the cruise liner, sinking it within 8 minutes. 448 people died in the accident. The investigation revealed the cause of the accident wasn’t a technology or weather. The cause was human stubbornness. Each captain was aware of the other ship’s presence nearby and could have steered clear. But neither captain wanted to give way to the other. Each was too proud to yield first. By the time they came to their senses, it was too late. Time Magazine,Sept 15, 1986, “Soviet Union Disaster at Sea” (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,962304,00.html)
Pride resulted in these two captains causing a preventable disaster. They both had the power to avoid the unfortunately situation. But they chose to hold themselves high even though they knew what actions were required. They refused to submit to anyone else. We can find ourselves in similar situations if we refuse to submit to God.
Conclusion
So what can we take away from Naaman’s lesson of pride? Listening to God is important.
Pride can get in the way of listening to what God has to say to us. When this happens, we don’t listen to what God has to say. We may become more concerned with our ego than our obedience. Pride puts an emphasis on our own works and our own performance. But, these attitudes will not lead to our salvation. These attitudes will lead us away from the saving grace of God. After all, what can we do to save our own souls? What can we do to ensure our place in heaven? Nothing. If there was anything we could do, we would have no need for the saving grace of Jesus’ sacrifice. We would never need Christ to die in our place.
On the other hand, when we bow down to God almighty and submit to his authority, we can see salvation before us, we can see him work through our lives for the benefit for us as well as others. When we submit to His will, we can appreciate the power that He has over our lives and recognize the sacrifice that Jesus made for us. We can see the sin that is in our lives because we understand that we are not perfect. We see ourselves as we are: disobedience, sinful people, unworthy of the saving grace of God, fully dependent on His mercy rather than our own achievements.
Do you see how being humble leads to greater things? Being aware of sin in our lives leads to repentance and allowing Jesus to wash away our sins. Humility leads to us being seen as righteous in God’s sight because our sins have been cleaned.
God wants us to submit to his rule. He wants us to submit to his will. We can learn much from Naaman’s story. We need to bend our knees like the Syrian general and bow to the will of God. Only then will we realize the benefits that God has in store for us.
