Dip

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. Hey, everybody. Pastor Chuck Allen here with another weekday podcast. And today I'm going to take us to the Old Testament book of second Kings. It's about a man named Naaman. [00:00:16] Speaker B: And on paper, Naaman has everything going for him. He's a commander in the army, he's powerful, he's respected. [00:00:24] Speaker A: As. [00:00:24] Speaker B: As earthly people see things, he's wildly successful. And the text goes like this. In 2 Kings 5, he was a great man in the sight of his master and highly regarded because through him, the Lord had given victory to Aaron. So in 2 Kings 5. 1, we see Naaman. [00:00:47] Speaker A: He's winning, he's leading, he's admired. And yet he had this one major problem, which was a disease in that day called leprosy. And that's how the sentence ends. [00:00:59] Speaker B: It's almost abrupt, like life sometimes is. It just slaps you. Everything's going right except for the thing that isn't and that one thing. It touches everything. So Naaman, he hears through a servant girl, no less, that there's a prophet in Israel that can heal him. And already the story starts to mess with our assumptions, because the hope for this powerful man comes from someone with [00:01:31] Speaker A: no power at all. Starting to see the picture. So Naomi goes with letters, with money, with expectation. Letters from the powerful, plenty of money from the wealthy. [00:01:43] Speaker B: The expectations that he can fix this himself, because that's how we tend to approach healing, right? We bring our status, we bring our resources, and this sense of how everything should go. And as he arrives at the prophet's home expecting something dramatic, something big, something worthy of him, instead, Elisha, the prophet doesn't even come out to meet him. He sends a little servant messenger. [00:02:13] Speaker A: And the message is wildly simple. In 2 Kings 5, 10, go and wash yourself seven times in the Jordan River. Then your skin will be restored and you'll be healed of your leprosy. That's it. [00:02:26] Speaker B: No ceremony, no spotlight, no speech. Just go wash seven times in the Jordan. And Naaman is ticked off, y'. All. I mean, he is furious. You say, well, why? Because that's not what he expected. Remember, he went with expectation that somebody worthy of him would step out and do something grand. He says, I thought he would certainly come out to meet me, like I [00:02:58] Speaker A: should have met, like the big dog. And it says in 2 Kings 5, 11, I expect him to wave his hand over the leprosy and call on the name of the Lord his God, and heal me. [00:03:10] Speaker B: Well, in other words, here's what he's saying. I kind of had a script in my Life. For this. I had a vision for how God's supposed to work. I knew what healing was supposed to look like in this. Well, this feels beneath me. It seems too simple. It seems too ordinary. It's, too, well, just stupidly unimpressive. And maybe that's where the story starts to land on us. Because how often do we miss what God is doing? Because it doesn't look like what we thought it would. [00:03:41] Speaker A: Naaman almost walks away. He almost keeps his disease. He almost closes the door and chooses pride over healing. But then again, servants speak. [00:03:53] Speaker B: People without status, speaking truth. In 2 Kings 5, 13, it says, sir, if the prophet had told you to do something very difficult, wouldn't you have done it? Great question, right? If it were harder, more complex, more impressive, well, you'd be all in, right? But because it's simple, because it requires humility instead of heroics. Now you hesitate. So Naaman goes down to the Jordan and just imagine this moment, this powerful [00:04:23] Speaker A: guy stepping into a muddy river, dipping once, nothing twice. Still nothing. Three, four, five, six times. And you gotta start wondering what's going through this guy's mind. He's thinking, this must look stupid. [00:04:35] Speaker B: This must look so ridiculous, he's gotta be tempted to quit at five, maybe. Maybe at six. Because healing in this story isn't instant. It's a process. It's obedience over time. I want to say that one more time. Let it sit for a second. It is obedience over time. It's trusted. It's repeated seven times. And then in verse 14, his skin became as healthy as the skin of a young child. [00:05:05] Speaker A: And he was healed seven times. The number of completion, wholeness, new beginning. But notice, the miracle didn't happen instead of the process. The miracle happened through it. [00:05:20] Speaker B: Through the repeated, humble, ordinary act of dipping again and again and again. And maybe that's the word for today, that the breakthrough you're looking for might be on the other side of the next small act of obedience. Not dramatic, not impressive, not something anyone would applaud. Just faithful, consistent, quiet. Maybe it's forgiveness again. Maybe it's showing up again. Maybe it's trusting God when you don't feel anything changing or dip two or three or six or seven times. [00:05:49] Speaker A: Because this story should remind me and you. God often works in ways that offend our expectations but heal our lives. So the question becomes, what if the [00:06:01] Speaker B: thing that feels too simple is actually the invitation? What if the ordinary step is the sacred one? What if your Jordan river is exactly where your healing begins? And what if you're closer than you think? One more dip, one more step, one more act of trust. And maybe, just maybe, that's where everything in your life changes, Friend. Our God desires to do something fresh in your life. Let the ordinary do something extraordinary in [00:06:32] Speaker A: you, because that's what he specializes in. God bless you, friend. Thanks for joining me on another weekday podcast.