The Small Thing You Keep Skipping
“So Naaman went with his horses and chariots and stopped at the door of Elisha’s house. Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, “Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed.” But Naaman went away angry and said, “I thought that he 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’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’!” So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy.”
— 2 Kings 5:9-14 (NIV)
The man outside that gate commanded the army of Aram, a kingdom that raided across the border for plunder. One of those raids had carried off the captive girl who told her mistress where help could be found. He set out with ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold and ten sets of clothing. Two talents had once bought the whole hill that Samaria was built on. Just before this, Israel's king tore his robes over the letter Aram's king had sent, sure it was only a pretext for picking a fight. The skin condition named here covered a family of disorders under one Hebrew term. Under the law such a man lived outside the camp, yet this foreigner kept his rank. The cleansing rite ran through a priest, with sprinkling repeated seven times and offerings burned on an altar. Outside that gate there was no priest, no altar and no ceremony. The water he was sent to is muddy and lies far below sea level. The two he preferred keep his own capital green at the edge of the desert. Here the healing came through one small act of obedience rather than a performance.
Something small has been sitting on your list for weeks. It is too dull to feel urgent and too easy to feel important. Maybe it is a form that has needed one signature since spring. Maybe it is the short walk a doctor asked you to take. Or maybe it is a phone call you keep moving to tomorrow. Jesus once healed a blind man by sending him to a pool. It is worth doing the small thing before you know what it changes.
One small thing, finished today
- 1Pick the smallest task you have been putting off, something that takes under ten minutes, and finish it before you go to bed tonight.
- 2If nothing comes to mind, wash whatever dishes you can see right now, or wipe down one surface in the room you are sitting in.
God, I keep waiting for something big before I move. There is a small thing in front of me and I have been stepping around it for weeks. Help me do it today instead of planning it again. Help me take you seriously when what you ask is small. I do not know what it will change, and I am asking anyway. Amen.
Today I deal with the small job I keep postponing, even though it looks too small to matter.
Why was such a simple instruction so insulting to him?
He had traveled with ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, ten sets of clothing and a military escort, and he expected treatment on that scale. What he got was an errand any servant could run, handed to him at the door by a messenger instead of by the prophet himself.
Why that river and not the ones he named?
The Jordan is muddy and runs far below sea level, while the rivers he preferred keep his own capital green at the edge of the desert. The water was never the point. The point was whether he would do the small thing he had been told to do.
What counts as a small thing for me today?
Anything under ten minutes that you have moved from one day to the next more than twice: an unanswered message, a form waiting for a signature, dishes in the sink, a short walk you keep promising yourself.