A sovereign God who has mysterious purposes

In the well-known passage of Naaman and Elisha there are many truths and teachings that tell us about a sovereign God who has mysterious purposes, who sometimes moves in ways we cannot understand, who is moving even in times of trial and error. difficulties in our life and who always wants to glorify himself in all matters of our life.

God wants to show us spiritual lessons that build us in our character and that allow us to know him better, and not only as we sometimes think, give us a quick solution to our problems and get us out of a jam, but God also wants to instill character in us, work in our inner being and lead us to be every day more and more like Jesus Christ, and glorify him in our lives, and with our behavior, and not only be there giving us what we ask for and keeping us as spoiled children that as we are used to always receiving from our dad what we want, because then we become proud and dependent people in a way that is almost parasitic on God instead of also being contributors and actors, and providers for the Kingdom of God and its holy purposes.

In this passage that is found in Second Kings in chapter 5, if you have your Bible you can accompany me, I am not going to read the whole passage because it is quite long and I am going to try to divide it into segments so that we have a few meditations of the which we can enjoy in the coming days. We see here in this passage, Second Kings chapter 5 that Naaman, says the Bible: _ "He was a general of the Syrian army and he was a great man in front of his master, his king held him in high esteem because through Naaman God had given salvation to Syria. "

Here is something interesting, first we see this great warrior, a very outstanding general who had been used to win many battles for the very powerful nation of Syria and who was held in very high esteem by the king of that country.

One of the things that is interesting to me as I begin this very passage is that it says here that God had used Naaman to bring salvation to the nation of Syria. It's interesting because Syria is an enemy nation of Israel, an oppressive nation that persecutes and oppresses the people of Israel, and yet here it says that God used Naaman to bring salvation to Syria. And one wonders: why would God want to save and defend, and give victory to a nation that is oppressing and stumbling His people Israel?

There are several possible explanations that we could give and in each of them we can see something about the sovereignty of God. The fact that God is more mysterious and more sovereign than we sometimes give him credit for or think. God has purposes that we cannot understand.

One sometimes wonders: why in this time in which we are living as the bad guys prosper so much? dishonest people are advancing while the children of God are being oppressed, why does God allow the Church of Jesus Christ to suffer so much persecution and evil advance in humanity, and that entire nations who do not believe in the Gospel, who are oppressing Christians and trampling the values of the Gospel prosper, and why doesn't God send judgment on these nations and on these rulers, and it seems like he rather blesses them, right?

And it is because God is an infinite chess player who sees things that we cannot see, and things that sometimes it seems that Satan is using those events is rather a very complex God who is moving the pieces of His infinite historical board to take things to a conclusion that is according to His complex Will. God sometimes takes a long time to teach us and show us what He has at hand with the different events that happen in history or even in our own lives, and we have to be patient, and understand that God knows what He is doing.

In this case Syria was playing a role that we cannot fully understand, but I believe that Syria was being used by God to discipline Israel, a rebellious nation; it always has been, a proud and arrogant people, idolatrous, ungrateful of the God who has given them so much and God many times used pagan nations around Israel to discipline His people and lead them to seek Him. We see that continually in history, that God used enemy nations to force Israel to humble themselves and seek more of God, and repent of their sins.

So I believe that God was using Syria for a much greater purpose and that is why perhaps He had used Naaman to give victory to this nation, to give him victory to be able to exert the pressure that God wanted him to do on His people Israel, ultimately instance to bring Israel to repentance and reconciliation with her God.

So maybe the main focus of this meditation is that. Let us never underestimate the complexity of God's movements in our life. God may be doing things that you do not understand and you may think that perhaps others will be used to deal with you in your life, and may be used in a way that may be negative and oppressive to you, but God may be disciplining you and trying to give you a message so that you get closer to Him and seek more of Him, and recognize that you need Him in all areas of your life.

This passage from Naaman is going to teach us many important things but today let us recognize the sovereignty of God and the complex movements in our life even when they seem contradictory. May the Lord bless you and we will continue our study in our next meditation.