Naaman's servants came up and reasoned with him. “My father," they said, "if the prophet had told you to do something extraordinary, would you not have done it?
More now, since he said to you, ‘Wash and be clean,' should you do as he said."( 2 Kgs 5:13)
God is good, all the time.
Friends, when Naaman, an accomplished army commander, was told by a servant girl to visit Israel to be cured of his leprosy, the idea sounded exciting and encouraging at first. He trusted the advice and traveled to Israel. Good for him!
When he stood before the prophet Elisha and heard that it is by plunging into the Jordan seven times that he would have his condition restored, he became irritated and unnerved by the idea. The Jordan river couldn’t be any better to heal than the ones in Damascus, he thought. As his servants reasoned out with him and he obliged, he became cured when he did what the prophet had indicated.
Faith and doubt are both common to us; they control our thinking and actions all the time as Christians. We all have reasons to acknowledge that faith works for us most of the time; we experience God's assistance and interventions in our daily lives. There are equal reasons for doubts; there are unanswered prayers and unexpected things that befall us.
Jesus told a proverb to the crowd in the synagogue at Nazareth about their lack of faith, "No prophet is accepted in his own native place." And in one of his speeches in Iraq, Pope Francis encouraged Christians, Jews, and Muslims to learn from Abraham’s faith and look up while they walk on earth.
Make no mistake, it serves every Christian better to maintain their faith than to lose it; even a simple belief can have the power to surprise us .The basic Christian posture we should have is one of continually looking up to heaven while walking on earth, by relying on the power of prayer and the efficacy of the Eucharist and the other sacraments.
Prayer blessing: We ask the Lord for the grace to reduce our doubts and turn our hearts to him; he is our help and our strength. Amen.