A Servant Faithful to God
Scripture Reading — 2 Kings 5:1-4
Bands of raiders from Aram had gone out and had taken captive a young girl from Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife.
—2 Kings 5:2
Naaman gets the spotlight in the story of his healing, but none of it would have been possible without a young girl who was taken from her homeland but remained faithful to her God. We know nothing about her except that she was part of the spoils of war.
But she knew one thing—that there was a prophet of God in Israel. Her simple sentence was a strong testimony of faith. She knew that where God was, there was always hope. And she dared to think that God cared for Syrians as well as Israelites.
In fact, the entire story of Naaman’s cure is possible because of servants. A servant tells him about Elisha, a servant tells him what to do for a cure, and Naaman’s servants convince him to follow through with the instructions. Almost everyone in this story is a servant to someone: Naaman to his king, a young girl to her mistress, Elisha to the Lord God. And in the end, Naaman becomes a servant to the true God.
We also are called to serve our King and Lord. Sometimes that may take us far from home into lonely places where strangers do not know us or our God. But wherever we are, we can testify to what we do know—that our God is a God of love and grace.
Lord, when we find ourselves strangers in a strange place, help us to remember whose we are and to share that knowledge with those who are strangers to you. Amen.
About the author — Thea Leunk
Thea Nyhoff Leunk has been a high school English teacher, a director of Christian education, a pastor of discipleship, and a regional coach for the Christian Reformed Church in North America. She is currently the senior pastor at Eastern Avenue Christian Reformed Church, Grand Rapids, Michigan. Thea has also written courses for teens and young adults on world religions, Christian faith traditions, and science and the Bible. She and her husband have three adult children.
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