What direction did you say again? Kelley Barton

“She said to her mistress, “If only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.”

Naaman went to his master and told him what the girl from Israel had said. “By all means, go,” the king of Aram replied. “I will send a letter to the king of Israel.” So Naaman left, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold and ten sets of clothing.”

The letter that he took to the king of Israel read: “With this letter I am sending my servant Naaman to you so that you may cure him of his leprosy.” 

As soon as the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his robes and said, “Am I God? Can I kill and bring back to life? Why does this fellow send someone to me to be cured of his leprosy? See how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me!”

2 Kings 5: 3 - 7

This passage on Sunday felt like a “comedy of errors”. The servant says, “go see the prophet” and Naaman relayed that to the King. The King may have assumed the Prophet/Healer was at court, the seat of power, or he simply didn’t listen carefully enough and filled in with his own assumption.  So Naaman goes to the King of Israel and gets reamed!

You might not be laughing because this may have happened to you. Not the Naaman part but the Servant part.

There are big chunks of our society that are waived off as not as smart or savvy. Not educated or important enough to be listened to. Insight and counsel brushed aside. For those of us putting in our 2 cents that doesn’t carry weight, we can shrug and think “it’s their loss”. For those of us who had the chance to head the right direction, based on an “unlikely” source of counsel and blew it off, we have those feelings of regret. “If only I had taken that morsel of advice to heart!”

But it also happens because sometimes we just don’t listen to each other!!!

Actors are trained to create Subtext, which is the words that go through an Actors mind when they are NOT talking, but listening to the other actor. It makes the performance more believable because people do it in real life. When you are listening to someone, does your mind drift to “as soon as they finish, I’m going to say….” And then you miss part of what they tried to tell you? I have to fight this tendency IRL quite often..

Naaman almost missed his healing. But he was able to get it, in spite of the mis-direction from his King. The consequences for us can be physical, like Naaman, but also mental or spiritual.

If you catch yourself dismissing someone who is taking the time to offer life directions, or your mind is drifting and you are not listening, try a reboot so you don’t miss out. You might really benefit from asking “What direction did you say again?”