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2 Kings 5:2-3  Now bands of raiders from Aram had gone out and had taken captive a young girl from Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife.  She said to her mistress, “If only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.”

2 Kings 5 is one of my favourite OT passages because of the way it illustrates the problem of human pride (sin), its disastrous epidemic effect on the whole human race, and its effect on our natural inability to accept God’s gracious free offer of its cure – salvation through what he has done for us in Christ.  Sin is a ‘disease’ like leprosy.

I was moved by the strange Providence of God expressed in verses 2-3!  My heart went out to the parents of the young girl in Israel when their daughter was taken away by the raiding Syrian (Aram) army.  I immediately thought of the Christian families in Nigeria, and other places throughout our present world, who have lost their daughters in a similar way, and how heart-breaking this would be.  I can’t help reflecting on what my three precious daughters meant to us when they were young, and what a blessing they are to me now as adults with their own families!

Judging by the way the LORD used this horrendously sad event in Israel to bring about a blessing to his enemies through the young captive girl’s faithful, undaunted witness, my guess is that she came from a very devoted godly family in Israel.  Why would a loving, sovereign God allow such a terrible thing to happen to them – to her and her parents?  But this same loving, sovereign God had an eternal purpose in what had happened!  And I’m reminded yet again of Spurgeon’s very helpful wisdom: “God is too good to be unkind and too wise to be mistaken, so when we cannot trace his hand we must trust his heart.”

I admit that I struggle daily with unfathomable instances of God’s strange, inscrutable providence in the lives of many friends and loved ones, but the story of Naaman the Leper encourages me to continue to look at God’s ‘Bigger Picture’ and to sing with Keith Getty, Samuel Rodigast’s song:

“Whate’er my God ordains is right, his holy will abideth; I will be still whate’er he does and follow where he guideth; he is my God, though dark my road, he holds me that I shall not fall – and so to him, I leave it all.  

Whate’er my God ordains is right, he never will deceive me; he leads me by the proper path – I know he will not leave me.  I take, content, what he has sent, his hand can turn my griefs away, and patiently, I wait his day.  

Whate’er my God ordains is right, though now this cup, in drinking, may bitter seem to my faint heart I take it all, unshrinking; my God is true, each morn anew, sweet comfort yet shall fill my heart and pain and sorrow shall depart.  

Whate’er my God ordains is right, here shall my stand be taken: though sorrow, need, or death be mine yet I am not forsaken; my Father’s care is ’round me there, he holds me that I shall not fall, and so to him I leave it all.”

– Bruce Christian