This week’s Lent theme is ‘trusting’. We start with quite an unusual passage, the story of Naaman’s healing. (2 Kings 5:1-3, 9-15). Naaman was a commander of the army of the king of Aram, a person with high social standing, but his life was blighted by a skin disease. In desperation, he listened to the word of his slave girl (taken from Israel) and went to the prophet Elisha, seeking healing. It can’t have been easy for him to trust the word of a slave, and when he got to the prophet, he was offended by the fact he did not come to meet him personally but simply gave him instructions to wash in the river Jordan. Naaman had to let go of his pride in order to trust this word from God’s man; the result was cleansing and healing.
Listening to the words of other people and trusting them enough to act on them are not easy things to do. We have to open our hearts to the words of God, being prepared to listen for them, whatever their source (for God can use anyone to speak to us, even a donkey in the case of Balaam!) and then act on them. Trust is not easy for us, but if we can let go of our pride as Naaman did, we can see healing and deliverance.
