#105: Train up a Child in the Way He Should Go…
Then she said to her mistress, “If only my master were with the prophet who is in Samaria! For he would heal him of his leprosy.”
II Kings 5:3 NKJV
Children, imagine this scenario for a moment. You are in your home one day when an invading band of foreign soldiers breaks into your house, kills or takes away your parents, and ties you up and takes you with them to another country. There are no police or soldiers to help you, you are entirely at the mercy of these enemy soldiers. How would you respond to this providence of God?
This scenario happened to a young girl of Israel. When she was put in the home of Naaman’s wife, she obeyed her captors’ orders and waited on Naaman’s wife (vs. 2). But she did more than simply wait on Naaman’s wife. She cared for the physical and spiritual well-being of her captors.
Unlike the parents of the children of the city of Bethel, this young girl’s parents were likely among the remnant in Israel that loved the Lord with all their heart, soul, strength, and mind and listened to the prophets the Lord had sent them. They had instilled a fear and love of the Lord in their daughter and a great respect for His prophets.
The young girl knew Naaman was a great man with the terrible disease of leprosy and that there was one who could heal him, Elisha the servant of the Lord upon whom the Spirit of the Lord rested mightily. In a lament to Naaman’s wife, she testified of the true God of Israel, “If only my master were with the prophet who is in Samaria! For he would heal him of his leprosy.”
She did not wish evil on her master whose soldiers had stolen her from her homeland and family. She wished him good. She did not wish his death but wished he knew the Lord and His power to heal! She had never seen or heard of Elisha healing a leper, because he hadn’t (Luke 4:27), but she knew that he could because great was her faith in the Lord! She was not afraid to speak of that which was good for her master’s body and soul but, in a way that reminds us of Esther, confident in the God her parents had brought her up to love and confess, she boldly spoke of His prophet to her master’s wife without being concerned for the consequences.
This young woman was raised in the fear and admonition of the Lord. Now without her parents nearby she did not abandon the faith her parents taught her but demonstrated to all the world that the God of her fathers was her God! Will you follow the Lord in this same manner no matter the severity of the situation the Lord has put you in? Parents, will you train your children in the way they should go so when they are older, or God forbid, taken from you, they will not depart from the Lord? Children, will you confess the Lord and His wonderful works to all people wherever the Lord places you for good or ill. Let us not forget the faith and testimony of this young girl who was used by God in her captivity to glorify His name among the nations!
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