Today's Devotional

December 12, 2002

Subject:  Obedience In The Ordinary

2Kings 5:10-13 - "And Elisha sent a messenger unto him, saying, Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean.  But Naaman was wroth, and went away, and said, Behold, I thought, He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the LORD his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper.  Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel?  May I not wash in them, and be clean?  So he turned and went away in a rage.  And his servants came near, and spake unto him, and said, My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it?  How much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean?" 

With so many televangelists producing daily miracles of healing, it's quite easy for us to be overwhelmed by the extraordinary.  Entire services are scheduled today around the "miracle working" of some supposed prophet, pastor or teacher who will do extraordinary feats by the "power of God."  Does God perform miraculous healing today?  Sure He does.  Is it always in a miraculous covering?  I don't think so.

First of all, all healing is from God.  Therefore your common cold is healed by God as well as your cancerous tumor.  Secondly, how God goes about performing the healing is up to Him.  Some people are never healed.  Some are healed through a miraculous event or circumstance and then you have the Naaman healings.

After Elisha told Naaman to go wash in the Jordan seven times, Naaman went away angry and expressed that he expected something much more extraordinary than simply going to wash in the Jordan.  He wanted to see the "fireworks" of God for his healing, but that wasn't required.  What was required was simple obedience to God's direction.  That's how Naaman healings come about; through plain old obedience to God.  While Naaman was looking for some miraculous acts to bring about his healing, God made it a simple issue of obeying His voice.

That's where we should be today.  If God desires to put miraculous covering on the healing processes in our lives, fine. However, our job is to be obedient in the ordinary and God can then create the extraordinary miracles in our lives.  

Carlen