The Works of God

In 2 Kings 5:1, God’s sovereignty was clearly stated.  As we walk toward the usual highlight of the cleansing, today we see the first of a whole series of really unusual things happening.  And it results in a hard, but good, challenge to me as a parent of a child with a disability.

2 Kings 5:2-3

Now the Syrians on one of their raids had carried off a little girl from the land of Israel, and she worked in the service of Naaman’s wife. She said to her mistress, “Would that my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.”

Does that strike you as odd?  A little girl is ripped from her home by violent men, she is placed as a slave in the home of a powerful man, and she seems to want the best for this man who is in charge of the men who took her from her home and made her a slave.

Even more strange, she talks about a cure for his leprosy!  Such a cure would not have been a normal thing; why would she have said such a thing?

It is also clear, on this side of the telling of the account, that if that little girl had not a) been taken as a slave, b) been placed in Naaman’s house, c) said something to Naaman’s wife, and d) been taken seriously by Naaman’s wife, then Naaman would not have been healed of his leprosy.

In other words, God is already orchestrating a series of events for the benefit of pagan man who is at the head of an army that is openly hostile and contemptuous of the people of Israel.  People in Israel were probably praying to be spared from this man, and God is already showing him kindness, but in ways that Naaman cannot yet see.

God could have started down this road in a very different way: an angel could have been sent, the Spirit could have spoken directly to him, a prophet could have been given a vision to visit him, a donkey could have talked to him.

But God chose a little girl, without power, likely without any standing at all, to bring good news.  By any rational account, it is the little girl who needs the help.  And we will not read anything more about this girl’s situation in 2 Kings 5.

I have frequently felt powerless when dealing with my son’s care.  I stopped counting the medical specialists we had seen after it topped 30.  I’m not sure, at this point, how many social workers, teachers, therapists and administrators I’ve met with as well.  All have or had pretty serious credentials, and all had some power over what would happen with my son.

But I have never been as powerless as that little slave girl. And, mostly, I have thought only about my situation and not theirs. My eternal situation is secure, and my God is the creator of the universe – should I not be telling, like that little girl did, that there is a cure for the spots on their souls?  Some of Paul’s teachers know of my faith in this God, but it isn’t a very high number of the total.

Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible helpfully lays out a series of extraordinary things that are happening in these two verses, but this one sticks with me in powerful way:

• The unhappy dispersing of the people of God has sometimes proved the happy occasion of the diffusion of the knowledge of God, Acts 8:4

Parents, have we not also been given an ‘unhappy dispersing’ from what we wanted or expected our lives to be because of our kids’ disabilities?  Should we not at least consider that the very purpose of our childrens’ disabilities is for the ‘happy occasion of the diffusion of the knowledge of God’?

I’ll look forward to your comments when I return from vacation about Aug. 16.

We’ll continue in 2 Kings 5 tomorrow.