During our one of our studies, we were encouraged to always look up unto God who is the ultimate source of our help and never to give up. Answers to prayers may be delayed but they will surely come in God’s own time and way. His calendar is quite different from ours. He has a due season for everything, and this will not be too late for our needs. Today, we will be looking at what happens when things do not go our ways. God has a plan for our lives and He has said that our ways are not His ways. May God bless and enrich our lives as we expectantly look unto Him for His divine intervention in our lives. Have you ever made plans to get something done and nothing went as planned? These times are frustrating at best, but did you ever have things go opposite of your plans but turned out better than you could have imagined? This is exactly what happened in the case of Naaman the leper.
The little Girl:
This Jewish girl illustrates how a person of no importance in the eyes of the world, by being in a key place and showing loyalty to God, can influence the course of the history of salvation. God honoured her faith by doing for Naaman, the idolater, what he had not done for any in Israel. Luke 4:24. How often has the finger of childhood pointed grown-up persons in the right direction? God had placed her for a purpose, and she was faithful. Where has God put you? No matter how humble or small your position, God can use you to spread his Word. Look for opportunities to tell others what God can do. You never can tell who will hear your message!
The man Naaman:
Naaman was a respected man of high office in the Syrian army and was personally known of by the King of Syria, BUT the problem was that he was a leper.
There are BUTs in our lives that God can also remove. No man’s greatness, or honour, can place him out of the reach of the sorest calamities of human life: there are many a sickly, crazy bodies under rich and gay clothing. Every man has some BUT or other, something that blemishes and diminishes him, some allay to his grandeur, some damp to his joy. Whatever BUT in your life, God will surely remove by His power.
The Disease:
Leprosy was a feared disease. It caused dismemberment and death, it is likened to sin. The bible says the wages of sin is death. The infected was quarantined and separated from all they knew and loved as sin separates one from god. Humanly speaking, his condition was helpless and hopeless, since he was a leper ( Rom_5:6-10). Naaman needed a miracle! Being a Gentile, he was a stranger to the promises and covenants of God and had no claim on His blessing (Eph_2:11-12). But God’s grace reached out to touch human need. The grace of God will reach out to touch you specific needs today,
The Plan:
It is funny, however, that he went to Samaria to find Elisha with a preconceived idea as to how God was going to work in his life. His plan was to impress the man of God with a show of his station and wealth having servants and a caravan with him.
Naaman’s plans were dashed when Elisha sent out his lowly assistant to tell him that what he needed to do was to dunk himself seven times in the insignificant Jordan River instead of Elisha coming out and making a great scene over him.
Naaman was offended and stomped off in a huff willing to leave the miracle that he came for behind simply because things didn’t go as he thought they should. (Read verse 11 again with emphasis on “I thought!”)
Have you ever been guilty of this? We come to God with expectations of how He or even the man of God should perform. When it doesn’t work out as we planned we become angry and quit trying. All the time our miracle is just within our grasp.
Naaman got his healing when he did it God’s way and was grateful for it. All Naaman had to do was to humble himself and obey the word of the Lord. The disease of Naaman was two – PRIDE and LEPROSY. One was spiritual and the other physical. Until the spiritual was healed, the physical remained!
It will happen for us as well if we can hold on “When things don’t go our way”.
Conclusion:
- We should never let pride get in the way of God in our life. Read Proverbs 16:18-19,
- Read Isaiah 55:8. It is never easy when God doesn’t work according to our expectations. However, God is working at answering our prayers better than we planned.
Jehoshaphat won a mighty war through singing – 2 Chronicles 20:10-23
Jesus did not answer Martha’s call when Lazarus was sick until he died – John 11:1-44
The beggar at the entrance of the temple was expecting alms from Peter and John – Acts 3:1-8
- What is the proper course of action for a Christian when dealing with false expectations? Be still and know that He is Lord – Crossing the Red Sea Exodus 14:13)
- Obedience to God’s Word is always prerequisite to answered prayer even if it is opposite to how we think I Samuel 15:22.
- God can use anything to accomplish His purpose in our lives. And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose – Romans 8:28
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