The other day I walked by a beautiful little bed of tropical plants. They were thick, healthy and happy. The mixture of sun and rain must have suited them well for they were abundant in what God made them to be. But among them, randomly sticking out like Dennis the menace’s crazy cowlick, were weeds. Long, skinny, unattractive. I couldn’t help myself. I stopped, bent over, and quickly weeded that bed. It had recently rained so the weeds put up little fight. There’s a funny saying that God has a special place in Hell for weeds and mosquitos, I’m not sure about that, but I definitely want to believe it’s true. After a few quick minutes, the offending weeds were gone, the bed of flowers now no longer needing to compete with their unattractive neighbor. They were free to display their beauty to the full. Folks, so is our lives unto God. As God sees our lives, He sees the tiny little weeds among the beautiful flowers and He carefully and lovingly plucks them, fully intending for our lives to be bountiful, beautiful and fragrant before him. And I can speak personally here, when he pulls the weeds of pride and false expectation from my life, I can always feel Him working on the garden.
One of my biggest faults is my expectations. God revealed to me years ago this simple faux pax that has caused much self-imposed pain throughout my life. He revealed it to me in three simple parts. 1) My unfounded expectations become reality in my life. 2) My unfounded expectations are not met. 3) I suffer bitter disappointment as my created reality seems incomplete. This little trio has haunted me for years. And then one day God pointed out the real issue that fuels the three, pride.
I think that the very root of all sin is just that, pride. The first sin in the garden was just that, pride. Adam and Eve were shown the pride that lurked in the recesses of their hearts. They wanted to be like the very God that created them. They wanted to think like God. Pride gives rise to arrogance, selfishness, anger, lies, self-righteousness, hate, murder, and well, the list could go on until my thesaurus runs dry. As a result of our inherited sin nature, we must all deal with a firm (and troublesome) foundation of pride. And as we deal with that pride every day, prideful expectations are sure to follow. Just as we see today in a powerful story in 2 Kings 5.
5MC readers please meet Naaman. Naaman is the 5-star general of the armies of Syria. He reports directly to the King of Syria, Ben-Hadad II in the year 853 B.C. We are told in 2 Kings 5:1 that he was quite the man. He held the highest military rank, he was in good favor with the king, he was great man, he was mighty man of valor and he led the Syrians to great victories. Quite the resume, yes? Only one small problem, he was a leper.
Leprosy (Hansen’s disease) was the scourge of the day. It was incurable, highly contagious and guaranteed a painful, horrible death as your body decomposed before your very eyes. As a result, leprosy meant alienation. People would no longer want to be around you, including family. Society discarded you. It is of great note that in God’s Word, leprosy is a picture of sin. Leprosy was incurable by mankind, only God could cure leprosy. Sin is the same. The course of leprosy alienated people, driving them into seclusion with their disease. Sin is the same. And if not cured by God, leprosy meant certain death. For the wages of sin is death. (Romans 6:23) We see here, in Naaman, a picture of a great man of courage, standing, prominence and performance. But he had one big problem, leprosy. And if that leprosy represents sin, we’ll see that pride was the cause of his sinful disease.
The king values Naaman greatly and is advised that the prophet Elisha can heal him. The kings sends Naaman off along with a gift of gold and silver that today would be valued at around $1.2 million dollars. Oh, the price we will pay to attempt to eliminate the pain of sin in our lives. But as Naaman finds Elisha, the lessons come quick and they come hard. You see, Naaman was steeped in pride. And even carrying a disease that guaranteed his death, his pride boiled over and took control.
“So Naaman came with his horses and chariots and stood at the door of Elisha's house. And Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored, and you shall be clean.” But Naaman was angry and went away, saying, “Behold, I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call upon the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the place and cure the leper. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?” So he turned and went away in a rage.” 2 Kings 5:9-12
Naaman rode right up to the front door of Elisha’s home with it all figured out. He knew exactly how it would all go down. I’ll ride up, Elisha will come out, I’ll make a big cash payment to the man of God, and then he’ll simply wave his hands over me and Bam!, I’ll be cured and be back in Syria in time for lunch and 9 holes at the country club. You see, Naaman’s self-created expectations had become his reality. And as we’ll see, his selfish reality will fall far from being met.
First, Elisha doesn’t even bother to come out of the house, he sends a messenger boy. Ouch, talk about a blow to pride and ego. Here is the military commander of one of the most powerful empires on Earth, brushed off and humiliated. Strike one for Naaman’s expectations. Second, since Elisha didn’t come out, he could not just wave a hand over Naaman and quickly heal him so he could easily be on his way. What? Can you see this? Naaman’s entire plan is going down the tubes. I mean, come on, he had it all planned perfectly, down to the last detail. Yet none of his plan is going right. His expectations are being shattered. Not only is he greatly inconvenienced by all of this, but now Elisha’s messenger gives him a stupid message. Go dunk yourself in the Jordan river 7 times. What? What kind of stupid nonsense is this? Not only does this not fit into Naaman’s expectations, but he thinks it has swerved off into pure insanity. If he really had to go jump in a river there are better, cleaner rivers than the Jordan! As Naaman’s expectations turned to reality and his reality is not met, he suffers great disappointment and frustration. And disappointment and frustration mix perfectly to make anger. He rides off in a rage.
Folks, have your expectations become your reality today? Did you hop up this morning with your day already planned to a T? Do you have everything perfectly planned for every minute of your day? And what happens when the whole plan goes off the rails? Do you suffer from fits of anger and rage? Do you see red when your expectations are not met? All signs of pride run rampant. You see, there is a big difference between our plans and God’s plans. God sees our selfish expectations as weeds amongst a beautiful bed, and He will carefully and lovingly pull them to see to the true beauty of the garden.
Fortunately for Naaman, he had some cool heads surrounding him. They said, “hey dude, what have you got to lose?” He dips seven times in the muddy Jordan and in his obedience to the Lord, he is healed. You see, he put his pride aside, he admitted that his expectations were his reality and not God’s. In humility and obedience, he was healed.
Our sin today is based in our pride. To fight that pride we need humility. We must know that God is in control, not us. We must know that God has a perfect plan, we don’t. And as our plans tend to override those of God, we must repent and acknowledge that regardless of our expectations, they cannot change our reality. For our reality is that Jesus Christ is Lord, and he leads those who love and worship Him with all of their heart.
May God reveal His perfect plan to you today.
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