“But Naaman became angry and stalked away. “I thought he would certainly come out to meet me!” he said. “I expected him to wave his hand over the leprosy and call on the name of the Lord his God and heal me!
But his officers tried to reason with him and said, “Sir, if the prophet had told you to do something very difficult, wouldn’t you have done it? So you should certainly obey him when he says simply, ‘Go and wash and be cured!’” So Naaman went down to the Jordan River and dipped himself seven times, as the man of God had instructed him. And his skin became as healthy as the skin of a young child, and he was healed!”
2 Kings 5:11, 13-14 NLT
Imagine a scenario where you suddenly walk up on a scene where you observe an adult holding a small child across their knees while administering sharp blows to the child’s back.
Deciding to intervene, you run up to neutralize the threat against the child, only to discover that this person was actually frantically attempting to dislodge an object from the child’s throat to save its life.
Context is everything. In our daily lives we subconsciously use perceived context to make judgments, and, indeed, sometimes snap decisions.
But here’s the thing about God. He, Himself, is the only context within which He can be rightly understood.
Think about it, we have a need, concern, etc., and we bring it to the Lord. However, we invariably do so within the context of our own predetermined idea of how the Lord should remedy the problem or meet the need. But in all honesty, we may not even know what the actual problem is, much less know how it should be solved.
God has a view, a vantage point, we do not have, neither can begin to imagine. Only He sees all things from the beginning to the end.
““Do not forget this! Keep it in mind! Remember this, you guilty ones. Remember the things I have done in the past. For I alone am God! I am God, and there is none like me. Only I can tell you the future before it even happens. Everything I plan will come to pass, for I do whatever I wish.”
Isaiah 46:8-10 NLT
We would be embarrassed to admit that we often think our analysis of a situation is better than God’s. But isn’t that estimation exactly true of the way we act when the Lord doesn’t answer according to our prescribed direction for Him?
In our opening scripture we see that Naaman nearly forfeited his healing, all because the prophet did not act according to what he had imagined.
Child of God, let’s repent for trying to package God, limiting Who He is, how He works, and what He should do, to the confines of our own understanding.
Make no mistake, we may well forfeit our relief, our answer, our blessing, when we try to limit an almighty, omniscient, eternal, God, to the box of our idea of how things should work.
Peace to you.
Jesus is coming! Get ready for Him!
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