Seven Dunks

Context

Naaman commands the army of Aram, and by every metric his world cares about, he's winning. The king loves him. He walks into a room and everyone straightens up. He also has leprosy, hidden under the armor — the one thing his rank can't fix.

The tip that could save him comes from the least powerful person in his house: a kidnapped Israelite slave girl who tells his wife there's a prophet back home who heals.

Story

Naaman pulls up to the prophet's house with a motorcade — horses, chariots, millions in silver and gold. He's expecting a scene. A wave of the hand, a dramatic prayer, a thunderclap.

Elisha doesn't even come outside. He sends a servant with one message: go wash in the Jordan seven times.

"I thought he would come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the place, and cure me."

Naaman turns the motorcade around, furious. The cure is too small to feel important. His own servants catch him on the road and ask the question that lands: if he'd told you to do something great, wouldn't you have done it? How much more, then, when he just says wash and be clean?

He gets out of the chariot. Once. Twice. Three times. Seven. He comes up with skin like a child's.

What We Learn

Naaman almost missed his healing not because he doubted God, but because he had a script in his head for how a man of his rank should be saved.

Pride doesn't always look like arrogance. Sometimes it looks like preferring the dramatic version of your own healing.

How many times has the small, unimpressive instruction been the one you walked past?