ISAIAH 55:9 - "Back To The Basics"

"For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts." You must know, and accept, that God does not want us to know everything there is to know about Him, His ways, His thoughts, His plan; basically, His anything. We should not even try to figure these things out, (trust me on this one); Why? Because we can not...And in trying to do so, we will just get frustrated and feel less important in the whole scheme of things; which can lead to us wanting to give up all together. We can not figure out the things of God, and just when we think we have, guess what, He shows us something else! However, what we must do is focus on the things He shows us about ourselves, and our relationship with Him; these are the things that we can figure out; and these are the things He will instruct us in. After all, what He really wants from us is a relationship; He does not want us to try and figure out all the things there are to know about Him; just to receive the things that He reveals to us, and then trust Him on all the rest; that is where He wants us to be; satisfied and humble. Besides, we can not even begin to change the things of God, so why be so concerned about them; instead we must focus on the things that we can change, or let Him change, and that is us; those are the things we must be concerned with. I remember hearing a very powerful message once, it went something like this: "If you want to change the world, you must first change the man, and that means you!" If we take a look at 2 Kings chapter 5, we can see a little bit of what I am talking about. Here we see the story of Naaman, who was a captain of the hosts of the King of Syria. In verse one, it says that he was and great and honorable man; he was a mighty man of valour, but he was a leper. He ends up being sent to the King of Israel by the King of Syria, with a letter from the King of Syria, addressed to the King of Israel, asking for the King of Israel to recover this very important man of his leprosy. Well, this did not go over to well with the King of Israel; in fact, he was very upset; he rent his clothes and said, "Am I God, to kill and to make alive, that this man doth send unto me to recover a man of his leprosy? Wherefore consider, I pray you, and see how he seeketh a quarrel against me." Basically, the King of Israel thought the King of Syria was trying to start a fight with him by asking him to do something that he could not do. So, in verse 8 it says: "And it was so, when Elisha the man of God had heard that the King of Israel had rent his clothes, that he sent to the king, saying, Wherefore hast thou rent thy clothes? let him come now to me, and he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel". Now, Naaman and his company show up at Elisha's house, expecting to be received with at least some kind of acknowledgement of how important he was, and how powerful of a figure he was in Syria; after all, that is why the King of Syria wrote the letter to the King of Israel, because he knew already that the prophet in Samaria was the one he needed to see, but thought by putting pressure on the King of Israel, that would make this matter of more importance. Verses 9 & 10; "So Naaman came with his horses and with his chariot, and stood at the door of the house of Elisha. And Elisha sent a messenger unto him, saying, Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean." You really have to understand the position of Elisha; he did not serve the King of Israel, he served God; but when he heard that the King of Israel had rent his clothes, he was concerned, and then after he had found out why he rent his clothes, he was no longer concerned, because he knew that God would be glorified in this. Then when Naaman shows up, Elisha did not what to receive any of the glory, but instead wanted God to be glorified; so he stays inside and sends out his servant Gehazi, with a message. But as we see from Naaman's reaction to this jester, he was not pleased; verse 11 & 12: "But Naaman was wroth, and went away, and said, Behold, I thought, he will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper. Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? may I go wash in them, and be clean? So he turned and went away." You see, Naaman, because he was such an important man, imagined showing up, and then this prophet stepping out, standing before him as if to perform a great and mighty wonder, by calling out to the Lord his God, and to intercede for this mighty man from Syria. But that's not what happened; no fanfare, no red carpet, no declaration before God, there wasn't even a prophet; in other words, Naaman felt like he received no respect. All he got was a stupid messenger, with a stupid message: "Go wash in the Jordan seven times". But really, isn't that how it is for us? we think God is going to do this grandiose thing in our lives, or even through our lives. We get everything all set up in such a way that we know He has to use us this way or that way, and then God says: "Go dip in the Jordan!" What Lord? Why? I mean really, couldn't we have done this better without having to have gone through all of this? Why did I even have to come all this way, to just be told to go wash myself? I could have got a better bath at home!!! We get all expectant within are minds, to see something spectacular, something extraordinary; and then God says pray, go share with that person, go feed that person some bread, do this, or do that; these things which to us seem as so simple, so basic, that we really don't see the point sometimes. Why? Because we don't have our focus on the real purpose of why! God wants to do a work in you! What was standing in the way of Naaman getting healed? Pride! His pride was stopping him from receiving what it was that God would do; and until he swallowed that pride and went down into that river seven times, he did not realise what it was God wanted to show him. Verse 14 & 15: "Then went he down, and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God: and his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean. And he returned to the man of God, he and all his company, and came, and stood before him: and he said, Behold, now I know that there is no God in all the earth, but in Israel!"