Spiritual Treasure
by Carl Horner, Pastor at Shore Mennonite Church
Doubts and Fears are Just Part of Faith
There’s a story in the Bible (from
2 Kings 5) which tells of a man whose
name was Naaman, who had leprosy.
Naaman lived in the kingdom of Aram,
which was a kingdom close to the land
of Israel.
Naaman hears that there is a
prophet in Israel who can heal him of
his leprosy. So he goes to his King, and
asks for permission to go to Israel and
get healed. Having been given permission by his King to leave, Naaman
heads off to Israel, with a letter from
his King, asking the King of Israel to
get Naaman healed.
The King of Israel seems to know
very little about the power of God that
was supposed to reside in a prophet in
his land. He thinks that the King of
Aram is making an impossible request
of him just to have a reason for a dispute between their kingdoms.
However, Elisha, who is the
prophet that Naaman has heard about,
hears about Naaman and his request to
be healed and sends word that Naaman
should come to see him.
Naaman goes to Elisha’s house, but
Elisha doesn’t even come out to talk
with him. He just sends a message that
Naaman will be healed if he goes and
dips in the Jordan river seven times.
Naaman is insulted that Elisha
wouldn’t even come out to talk to him.
He had expected something dramatic
from the prophet, not some simple
instructions like dipping in a muddy
river, so he goes off angry, not intending to go dip in the Jordan at all.
Some servants try to reason
with him that if Elisha had said to do
something really hard or dangerous, he
would have done it. They convince him
that since it is easy, he might as well
try it. Besides, what does he have to
lose by trying it?
pg 46 · The Hometown Treasure · Oct. ‘11
So Naaman goes to the Jordan
and dips in the water seven times like
Elisha said to do, and he is healed of
his leprosy.
When this happens he goes back to
Elisha’s house and proclaims, “I know
at last that there is no God in all the
world except in Israel.”
When Naaman makes this declaration about God, you realize that
God’s goal has been accomplished; He
is recognized as the true God by this
foreigner.
What does this story tell us about
the faith of Naaman? When it gets
down to doing what God has said to
do in order to be healed, Naaman
doubts the validity of following Elisha’s
instructions. He knows these instructions come from
someone with a
reputation as God’s
spokesman, yet
the instructions
seem ridiculously
silly, even easy. He
doubts how it could
possibly work.
Naaman lacks
faith. Even the way
he ends up following
the prophet’s word,
shows a lack of true,
strong faith. He decides he has nothing
to lose by washing
in the river, so he
decides to try it.
His faith is
weak, but his willingness and openness to try is strong.
God rewards that.
Even when we
lack true strong
faith, God can and
will reward our ef-
forts at faith.
Naaman is an ordinary person,
just like us. We can relate to him. We
also have doubts. When we get in a
tough