Simple Obedience

Scripture:

II Kings 5:13  "Naaman's servants went to him and said, 'My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it?  How much more then, when he tells you 'Wash and be cleansed'".

Observation:

Naaman had some good help.  He had gotten leprosy and wanted to be cleased.  Elisha instructed him to dip seven times in the Jordan river and he would be cleansed from it.  Naaman was basically telling his servants that this didn't make sense and that there were much better rivers to dip into.  The servants say to him, "if the prophet would have told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it?"

Application:

Sometimes we don't want to obey God in every little detail.  We basically feel like Naaman that what He is asking doesn't make sense.  Rather than listening and obeying, we try to rationalize it and make sense of it.  We even give God lots of ideas about how He could fix the situation in some other way.  Simple obedience to God is the hardest thing to do, especially when God doesn't make sense, but it will lead to a life of the miraculous power of God being demonstrated through our obedience.

Prayer:

Lord, You are amazing!  Help me to learn to obey quickly and simply.  Help me stop trying to rationalize whether I think this is the right thing to do and simply obey Your voice.  As usual, I ask you again to let me hear Your voice clearer each day.  I want You to speak to me and I want my ears open to hear at all times.

Yours,

Jeff