The Naaman Story

What do I think of when I hear the Naaman story, very simply I think of a great man who had a problem he couldn’t solve no matter what he did. He tried everything but nothing worked up until he met with Elisha the prophet who gave him a simple task and solved his problem. I also think of the greedy Gehazi who went after the wealth his master had refused and thus lost the heritage of being the next great prophet of Israel.

Today I have a new light shone on this story and I will like to show you that light, verses 1-3 shows us that Naaman is a great man who was plagued by leprosy of a certain stage, he had a slave girl of Israel working in his house for at this time Israel wasn’t really a force of extreme power like in the time of David they had been plundered before and had their children taking at some point. The girl told him God could heal him if he sought help in Israel but like every normal human, he went to the king of Israel with a letter from his king a single man’s problem became a political dilemma which could potentially turn into the destruction of the kingdom of Israel by the Syrian Army (how do we fix situations beyond our capacity or capability? We ask God for help) why did the king of Israel not really understand his Heritage as the King Ordained God?

Verse 8 Delegate

When a problem is beyond your capacity you must find the person capable of handling it and delegate the work to them it is extremely important that you have in your crew team as diverse skills as possible.

IN verse 9-11 we see a life principle that wasn’t explained in words till the coming of our lord Jesus Christ and that is no man should be treated special Naaman was a general a great one at that but Elisha didn’t even come out to see him, this was a point in Naaman’s life when he was to understand the supremacy of God he had to be humbled and made to see he was just another man. He even commented himself how he expected the man of God to come out and see him in the least but this wasn’t about the man of God it was about the God of Israel so Elisha didn’t come out, it was for Naaman to build faith in God (by the way Naaman was a filthy Gentile at this point so the holiest priest in Israel was above his privilege level).

In the next verse we see what I term a necessary ingredient of greatness it is the ability to take a chance and e able to accept that you can be wrong. In this trait I believe lies the secret to Naaman’s greatness he always listened to his subordinates he saw them as men not just slaves he listened to them and considered their advice. A man must be able to understand that as he rises, he needs those below him to be able to still see and understand their dimension of reality if he is to be able to function in their realm while living in his realm even God uses man to be able to function in our realm while remaining God.

Next we see the true conversion of Naaman to the Jewish religion, this man was convinced by the result he experienced none of the God’s in Syria could fix him thus from his heart he chose the God  of Israel as the supreme while acknowledging the reality that he would still have to follow his master into the temple of his god for it would be counted as treason if he did otherwise (I think nowadays in Christianity we sometimes tend to fool ourselves when we say that old things passing away means removing and isolating from our field of influence. I mean why else did God choose you if not so he can penetrate your field of influence after establishing you in him personally I think the church is supposed to prepare you and push you into the world to penetrate it instead of just hiding you as we currently do in some of our churches).

After the healing Naaman tried to pay for the service done to him the prophet refused and his servant accepted on his own. Here again we see another important lesson we must never become powers in the house of God. Gehazi knew the prophet as a man, he knew his strength and weaknesses and everything else and as such he felt the prophet made an unreasonable decision ho would he refuse the appreciation of the man (who knows they may have been low on cash and foodstuff at that point or the sons of prophets administration may have need of extra funding or he may just have wanted to better their wealth) which in itself is not a bad thing but he struck out on his own without his masters blessing unknown to him was he reason for his masters refusal and instead of asking and finding out why his master refused the gift he just did what he felt he leveraged his position. The lesson is this never leverage your spiritual position without direct instruction from God. Upon his return his master told him this is not a time to accept gifts and his destiny was truncated and he also brought a curse on his generation simply because he was too familiar with the MAN OF GOD and not the GOD HIMSELF so to my fellow church brethren and workers always be conscious of the God and not the man.