There’s a story in 2 Kings chapter 5 we can all learn from.
Naaman was a great General, a mighty soldier, that his king viewed as a great and honorable servant. Naaman was a rich man, accustomed to walking the great halls of the high levels of society, and was constantly around the finer things of life. Unfortunately for him, he had a disease no amount of money could cure him of: leprosy.
He caught wind of someone in Israel who supposedly had the ability to perform medical miracles, and when he told his king about the prospect, the king facilitated his journey. Naaman brought an excessive amount of money and gifts to the land, ready to perform all kinds of bizarre rituals or to complete difficult quests for the sake of being healed. Skip ahead to when Naaman arrived at the prophet Elisha’s door, he expected to be received with the rolling out of the red carpet, then be given a personal ceremony where Elisha prayed and performed some kind of dramatic routine, then be healed supernaturally.
Instead he got something much different. Elisha didn’t even bother to meet him. He sent a messenger instead. “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored to you, and you shall be clean.”
Naaman was furious. Didn’t this prophet know who was standing here at his doorstep? The Jordan River was dirty and muddy, and there were far more prestigious rivers where he came from in Syria. He could have easily washed in one of those if that’s all it took! He stormed off in anger.
While he was still livid, his servants approached him. They said something to the effect of “hey Boss, not for nothing, but when you came here, you were prepared to do all kinds of elaborate or crazy things if this guy told you to. If he told you to do something easy, why not give it a try? What’s the worst that could happen?”
The text doesn’t really say how much Naaman deliberated over this; it just says he went down and did what Elisha told him to do. And wouldn’t you know? “His flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.” I wonder sometimes if we make things too difficult. I think a lot of us know God can use us for mighty things if He chooses, but we don’t often think about the easy things or the small things.
One of my favorite lessons from the Bible is the idea of God saying “if you’re not faithful in the little things, why would I trust you with the big things?” What if, instead of looking for that big dramatic thing that happens infrequently, we focused on trying to be faithful and willing to do the small things on a regular basis? My worry is that we might spend so much time on the sidelines waiting for something “truly worthy of our standing” that we miss smaller opportunities God places in our path much more often. Let’s grab the opportunities that are already there instead of waiting for the ones that might come along further on down the road.