Thirteen Day of Lent - Elisha

 

Credit: Marko Prezelj Photo

10 Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, “Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed.”

11 But Naaman went away angry and said, “I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy. 12 Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?” So he turned and went off in a rage. 2 Kings 5

This reaction brings to mind Simon Yate's prayer as recounted in the bio-pic called 'Touching the Void'.

Yates, and his climbing partner Joe Simpson, found themselves with a terrible dilemma with Yates hanging by a rope over the edge of a precipice attached to Simpson.  Simpson realised that he would have to cut the rope to save his own life.    Yates reports that he cried out to God for a miracle.  He promised to dedicate himself to God if he survived.  Yates then said that he then felt nothing.  Nothing happened.   Absolutely nothing, and he realised that 'there is no God'.  Simpson cut the rope.  Yates fell down into an ice crevasse.  His legs were broken and his knee smashed.  But he was alive.  He saw light at the end of an ice tunnel, and painfully crawled down the tunnel, out into the light.  He then crawled across the base of the mountain for about a mile to the base camp, where he was greeted by astonished  climbers, and was taken to hospital. He was able to make a full recovery. 

PRAYER: I was created in Your image, not the other way round.