Blog post April 16, 2026

Misguided expectations!

I love Bible stories where I can relate to the characters in the story. Today's story comes from 2 Kings 5.

A devout soldier and servant of the king named Naaman came down with leprosy. The story is how he miraculously got healed. He was told of a man of God, a prophet, in Samaria who would be able to heal him. So through a series of events he winds up at the man's house. He sends one of his servants to knock on the man's front door. Instead of the prophet Elisha coming out to greet him, he sends his servant to tell Naaman to go wash in the Jordan River seven times and he would be clean.

I have 750 pounds of silver, 150 pounds of gold, 10 sets of clothing for this man and he wants me to go wash in a dirty river in Samaria? I don't think so! Let him come out and wave his hands over me and make my leprosy disappear. Furious, Naaman storms off.

Naaman was about to miss a blessing because it wasn't coming in the way he thought it would. It wasn't until his servants talked some sense into him that he paused to listen. They said if the prophet had asked you to do something hard surely you would've done it, but he's telling you to do something simple, why will you not do it?

I wonder how many times have I missed God's blessing because He simply tells me to have the faith of a child, yet there surely must be more to it than that. In fact the real hero of this story is not the Prophet or Naaman. It is a little child, a girl, who had been taken captive when her village was raided. She was given to Naman's wife as a slave. Seeing how distraught Naaman's wife was because of his leprosy, she said to her "O I wish my master could go see the prophet in Samaria, he could heal him!"

Heavenly father, a little child's faith started it all, and childlike faith in the end was honored by You and brought healing. It's a beautiful story that chips away at each of us for our lack of childlike faith. O how often have we formulated in our minds how You should do things rather than having childlike faith that Your ways are best.