Episode 1162: Our Work or God’s?

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 1,162 of the inspired stewardship podcast. I'm

[00:00:07] James Pyle: James Pyle. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to master self awareness and transcend your limits are keys.

[00:00:30] And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Maderer.

[00:00:40] Scott Maderer: It sometimes makes us think that our calling is too small. Our calling doesn't bring enough attention to me. Our calling isn't special enough to be a good calling. And yet if at the end of the day, you are doing what God has called you to do. [00:01:00] That's always. Enough welcome. And thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast.

[00:01:09] If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your I. So that you can impact the world

[00:01:30] in today's spiritual foundation episode about investing in others. I talk with you about second Kings chapter five versus one through 14. I share with you how we can focus on ourselves when doing our work. And I also talk about how instead we can recognize that this is God's. Second Kings chapter five versus one through 14 goes like this.

[00:01:56] Numan commander of the army of the king of a was a great [00:02:00] man and in high favor with his master, because by him, the Lord had given victory to a, the man though, a mighty warrior suffered from leprosy. Now the he mans on one of their raids had taken a young girl captive from the land of Israel and she served Damon's.

[00:02:17] She said to her mist strife. If only my Lord were with the prophet who was in Samaria, he would cure him of his leprosy. Naman, went in and told his Lord just what the girl from the land of Israel had said in the king of a said go then. And I will send along a letter to the king of Israel. And he went taking with him 10 talents of silver, 6,000 shackles of gold and 10 sets of garments.

[00:02:43] He brought the letter to the king of Israel, which read when this letter reaches that I have sent to you my servant name him, that you may cure him of his leprosy. When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, am I God to give death or life that this man sends word [00:03:00] to me to cure a man of his leprosy, just look and see how he is trying to pick a coral with.

[00:03:06] But when Elijah, the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes. He sent a message to the king. Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come to me that he may learn that there is a prophet in Israel. Naman came with his horses and chariots and halted at the entrance of Elijah's house.

[00:03:23] Elijah sent a message to him saying, go washing the Jordan seven times and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be. But Naman became angry and went away saying, I thought that for me, he would surely come out and stand and call on the name of the Lord, his God, and would wave his hand over the spot and cure.

[00:03:41] The leprosy are not Abana and FA far the rivers of Damascus better than all the waters of Israel. Could I not washing them and be clean? He turned and went away in a rage, but his servants approached and said to him, father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, Would you not have done it?[00:04:00]

[00:04:00] How much more when all he said to you was wash and be clean. So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God, his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy and he was clean. Now, this is one of those stories of the prophet and this interaction that he has that.

[00:04:23] I it's illustrative of what we do sometimes when we're put in positions of leadership. If you look at the news and things that are going on, I think we would all agree that there's a lot of examples of leaders or people in authority who seem to set themselves up on a pedestal and take themselves too seriously.

[00:04:48] And yet leaders are people just like us. They suffer. They have joys, they celebrate, they mourn, they cry, they laugh, they make [00:05:00] mistakes. They do all of those things that all of us do at. And yet in some ways, often they are getting set apart in some way as well. They're able to access things that maybe the quote everyday person can.

[00:05:21] often for instance, if they're suffering from illness, they get access to some of the best medical care in the planet. They get access to medicines and doctors that maybe most of us don't get access to. And yet, sometimes when that leader gets a condition, it's something that's just not curable.

[00:05:43] It's something that even access to the best doctors on the planet. Can't. That's the story here. Leprosy is not something that is curable by the medicine of that time in Israel. [00:06:00] There, there wasn't really a treatment for it. There wasn't anything that you could do that would make it better. And this little girl, this servant of the wife says, oh all you gotta do is go to the prophet over, back home in, in Israel.

[00:06:16] And he could cure. now think about what happens next. Naman goes to his king and says, Hey, help me get an audience with this person in Israel that can cure me. And they immediately send a letter to the other king, to the king in Israel. They don't go to the prophet directly. They go to the king of Israel and the king of Israel's a little confused.

[00:06:42] He's are they trying to pick a. Are they trying to make it where I can't do this thing that they're asking me to do so that they have an excuse to declare war on me, because I don't know how to cure somebody of leprosy and Elisha the prophet that's dwelling in Israel [00:07:00] somehow hears about this. And he says, that's no problem.

[00:07:03] Just send him to me. I can help him. It's interesting too. He says I can help him. And. , it's not gonna be him. That actually helps him. He's a prophet of God. It's gotta be God. That's doing the helping. So the king says, oh good. This is a solution I can at least send him over to Elisha. And maybe he can help him, maybe not, but it's it's at least moving.

[00:07:28] The problem is kicking the can down the road. So to. so Naman goes to the prophet's house, expecting this great reception, expecting a lot of PO and circumstance expecting the prophet to come out and say, oh, you're a great warrior. You're this wonderful person here. Let me do magic and cure you. Let me make a performance out of it.

[00:07:52] And instead the profit doesn't even come out of the house. He just says, go down to the river. Washed seven times, by the way, the Jordan, if [00:08:00] you go look up pictures of the Jordan river, it's basically a muddy Creek. It's a very, not huge body of water and it's very muddy and dirty. It is not where you would want to go to wash.

[00:08:14] And this comes across as an insult. NA's wait a minute. I can't do this. This is stupid. The rivers back home are better than this river. If that if was, and the river would cure me, I could've done that. And never even come here to Israel. I would've been cured at home, so this is stupid and he's gonna go home angry.

[00:08:36] But at this point the servants step forward and say if he'd asked you to do something hard, climb a mountain or do something difficult, you probably would've done it. You would've managed to do it. You're a great warrior. You would've found a way to do it, but all he did was ask you to wash in the river, something relatively easy to do, and you're throwing a hissy fit about it.

[00:08:59] [00:09:00] This may seem funny, but if you think about it as a great leader of his country, this probably felt somewhat beneath him. And yet he brings himself to do it. And in fact, he is cur. but think about this the prophet here did his work without ever leaving his house. And that's because it's really not the prophet's work at all.

[00:09:26] This was God's work. God put that little girl in the right place to deliver the message that, Hey, you can go to Israel and get cured. God actually allowed Elijah to hear about what happened. He could send a message to the king of Israel and step in God probably told Elijah what he should do. All of this is left out of the story.

[00:09:51] And yet it's clear that this is what's going on. Elijah didn't need to be in the spotlight. He didn't need to step out and [00:10:00] show a lot of PO and circumstance and magic. He just needed to deliver the message of God. And at the end of the day, there was all of this PO and circumstance and material goods that were sent from king to king, from leader to leader.

[00:10:20] And yet at the end of the day, it was the simple act of submitting to the message of God and washing in the water that brought the cure. And I think a lot of times. That kind of happens to us. Sometimes we're looking for our work that God is calling us to do, to be full of pump and circumstance, to be exciting, to be something that we all get to do.

[00:10:48] And that's powerful, something that brings a lot of attention to us. Something that looks good. Sounds good. And puts us in a place of honor. [00:11:00] And yet a lot of God's work is done. In the margins it's done in the quiet it's done on the side. It's done without a lot of attention, especially when you're put in a position of leadership.

[00:11:13] It's easy to think to yourself when I want to help others. I need to do it in a big flashy way. I need to have the neatest way to do it. I need to impact the most. I talk to people on my podcast all the time that have a goal of helping a million or a billion or a trillion or whatever number of people.

[00:11:33] And the thing about it is all of those are good goals. There's nothing wrong with that. That's not a bad thing, but at the same time, it sometimes makes us think that our calling is too small. Our calling doesn't bring enough attention to me. Our calling isn't special enough to be a good calling. and yet, if at the end of the day, you are doing what God has [00:12:00] called you to do, that's always enough.

[00:12:04] Thanks for listen.

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