Naaman needed a miracle. The captain of the Syrian army had wealth and authority, but he was a leper. When he heard that there was a mighy prophet in Israel who could heal him, he traveled to the home of Elisha.
But things didn’t go the way Naaman had envisioned. As he stood at the door, Elisha remained inside his house and sent a messenger with an odd set of instructions: “Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean” (2 Kings 5:10). Both the message and the manner of delivery made him angry. “Behold, I thought, He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper. Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? may I not wash in them, and be clean?” (2 Kings 5:11-12). He wanted to be healed, but in a way suitable to the commander of the Syrian army. His pride nearly stopped him from receiving the gift.
Luckily for him, Naaman had wise servants who were willing to give him the counsel he needed to hear:
My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? how much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean?
2 Kings 5:13
Naaman listened to his servants, humbled himself, washed in the river Jordan as instructed, and was healed.
The Old Testament gives us the story. The Book of Mormon explains the principle.
As the prophet Alma charged his son Helaman with the care of the brass plates, he said, “Ye may suppose that this is foolishness in me.” The task seemed small, even trivial. Would Helaman take it for granted and neglect his duty because it was so easy and so inconspicuous? But Alma explained that the size of the task is not correlated with its importance:
I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise.
Alma 37:6-7
And the Lord God doth work by means to bring about his great and eternal purposes; and by very small means the Lord doth confound the wise and bringeth about the salvation of many souls.
Don’t make Naaman’s mistake, assuming that a big miracle must be accomplished through big and dramatic actions. Some of Elisha’s most powerful miracles, such as multiplying a widow’s oil and raising a child from the dead, had happened inside of a home and affected only one family (2 Kings 4:1-37). Alma himself had learned this lesson, wishing he were an angel with power to persuade everyone, but reconciling himself to his more mundane missionary methods. “Why should I desire more than to perform the work to which I have been called?” he wrote. “Why should I desire that I were an angel, that I could speak unto all the ends of the earth?” And then he added his testimony. “The Lord doth grant unto all nations, of their own nation and tongue, to teach his word, yea, in wisdom, all that he seeth fit that they should have” (Alma 29:6-8). If you believe that God is really in charge, then you can take small, seemingly insignificant actions with faith that they will meaningfully contribute to His great purposes.
Today I will do the small and simple things God has asked me to do. I will remember that God can make great things happen when I do very small things.
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