Healing

Dear Friends,

In the Old Testament reading this week (2 Kings 5:1-14) there’s a general, Naaman, who is suffering from leprosy. He finds out there is a prophet (Elisha) who has the gift of healing, so he goes to visit him.

Elisha tells him to wash in the Jordan seven times in order to be healed. Instead of Naaman being grateful for the instructions, “Naaman became angry and went away, saying, ‘I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy! Are not…the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them, and be clean?’ He turned and went away in a rage.” (2 Kings 5:11-12)

Naaman was eventually healed by (spoiler-alert) actually following what the prophet instructed. But why was he so mad to begin with?

Naaman was a commander for the king of Aram. He was a powerful and influential man, accustomed to giving orders, not taking them. In order for him to get better he had to undergo the death of his ego, which can be an emotional undertaking.

Without getting too technical, the general idea of “ego death” is that each time we practice non-attachment, we become a little more enlightened. And it is our egos that we are most attached to, because they give us our identities and senses of self. We can never totally destroy our egos (and wouldn’t want to), but we can practice quieting their need to be in control or the center of attention.

This is easier said than done, and I imagine it will take us a lifetime of learning to let go; that has been the case for me at least. Perhaps what we will eventually find, much like Naaman did, is restoration, not in how we demand it happens, but in God’s own time and in God’s own way. 

In Christ,

Anthony+