Big Things in Small Packages

By Pastor Jeffrey Smith 

“ So Naaman with his horses and chariots arrived in style and stopped at Elisha’s door. Elisha sent out a servant to meet him with this message: “Go to the River Jordan and immerse yourself seven times. Your skin will be healed and you’ll be as good as new.” Naaman lost his temper. He turned on his heel saying, “I thought he’d personally come out and meet me, call on the name of GOD, wave his hand over the diseased spot, and get rid of the disease.” 2 Kings 5:9-12 MSG

Let’s just go ahead and get this out in the open. Pride is awful and we all deal with it. Whether we admit it or not, we all have a bad habit of making everything about ourselves. Namaan is a great example of how pride gets the best of us. He was sick with leprosy and going to visit the prophet in hopes of being healed. Elisha didn’t respond to Namaan with the kind of respect he felt he deserved and it made him downright angry. You’d think that a desperate man would take whatever he could get, but pride causes us to be blind to how needy we actually are.

Namaan was furious because he expected a visit with the prophet, a dramatic healing, and a big conclusion. Instead he got a message from a servant. He felt superior to this and that shows how much pride he had. You can learn a lot about a person by how they treat someone who cannot advance them. How do you treat people who cannot advance you?

 God has a way of giving us things we need wrapped up in packaging don’t want as a way of testing if we’re humble enough to receive. Perhaps you’re waiting on God to give you a platform for ministry and you’ve overlooked that he’s given you one in your workplace because that platform doesn’t seem high enough for you. 

Instead of being prideful, let’s always aim to live in humility. Humility isn’t a penalty; it’s a possibility. Humility opens us up to receive from God because it’s grounded in our reliance upon God. God opposes the proud, but He gives grace to the humble!