THIS DOESN’T MAKE SENSE
While in seminary, I served as a hospice chaplain to patients who were diagnosed with 6 months or less to live.
There was a nice and personable patient who sticks in my memory. This man had a wonderful wife, kids, and grandkids. He had just retired and was getting ready to spend retirement traveling when he received his diagnosis. Instead of enjoying a hard-earned retirement traveling around the country, he would live out a few short months confined to a hospital bed in his house.
I remember leaving that home thinking, “There are bad people in this city who will live to a ripe old age. Yet this sweet patient will die early and never enjoy his retirement. This doesn’t make sense!”
I have the same feeling when I read 2 Kings chapter 5. The story doesn’t make sense:
- A slave girl shows care and compassion toward her captor. (2 Kings 5:3)
- A ruthless king shows compassion and care for a commander and sends him for healing.
- God’s king and the servant of God’s prophet both are self-centered and lack compassion.
- The man in need of healing is prideful and arrogant at first, yet he’s still healed.
- The servant of God’s prophet ends up with leprosy.
In other words, the people you would have thought to be selfish were compassionate, and the people you would have thought to be compassionate were selfish.
THE TWO THINGS THAT ALWAYS MAKE SENSE
Naaman’s healing came about because of people in his life who were compassionate and cared for him, while Gehazi’s leprosy came about because of his greed and lack of compassion. (2 Kings 5:20)
Care and compassion are two things that always make sense because they are akin to God’s own heart. Selfishness and greed, on the other hand, are forces akin to the evil one.
So, despite the assumptions people might make about you, if they dug down to your core, would they find care and compassion for others or selfishness and greed for yourself? Would they find the heart of God or the heart of the enemy?