Assumptions About the Lord and His Ways - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him and what came to my heart and mind in 2 Kings 5:11-12,

"Naaman went away angry and said, 'I thought that he [Elisha] would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn't I wash in them and be cleansed?' So he turned and went off in a rage."

Naaman was the commander of the army of Aram. He had contracted leprosy, heard of the prophet Elisha through a Jewish servant girl and set out to see if he could be healed by the Lord through Elisha.

Elisha told Naaman to go wash in the Jordan River and he would be healed. The passage above was Naaman's initial response. While he did eventually go wash in the Jordan and get healed, his first response was one of anger. When Elisha told Naaman to go wash in the Jordan, he did so through a messenger- he didn't even come out to see the afflicted Naaman. Naaman's assumption was that Elisha would act in a certain way to implore the Lord on his behalf. Finding Elisha's actions as not what he expected, he set himself to go back home, leprosy and all.

The account causes me to think of the many assumptions we all have about the Lord and his ways. To the degree we have not availed ourselves of the Lord's revelation of himself in the Bible, we make assumptions. I think most all of us do.

We all seem to have assumptions about the Lord, about the way he is, what he is like, how he does things. I have to admit to being somewhat startled of what I learn of the Lord from time to time as I read the Scriptures. Some accounts are just not consistent with my assumptions. In the pages of Scripture we have accounts of the Lord dictating genocide (see the overthrow of Jericho, Joshua 6), of Satan sitting in with the angels to present themselves to the Lord (see Job 1), of God singing for joy over us (see Zephaniah 3:17 - I just never pictured God singing!) - these kinds of things. I'm sure you can add to a list here.

Naaman had his assumptions of the Lord and I have mine as well. Those assumptions often do not serve me well as they did not serve Naaman well. The one advantage I have over Naaman is that I have sixty-six books that tell me all about what the Lord wants me to know of him. To ignore what the Lord provides me, dispelling my inaccurate assumptions of him, would be to my great loss.

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!

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Trevor Fisk
trevor.fisk@gmail.com