You are a leader in your field of interest and have worked your way up the corporate ladder or perhaps a partnership. At home you have a family and you have a domestic worker who does the cleaning of your home. She comes from a little village far away and misses her home but serves you well as your domestic worker. As she does the washing of clothes and ironing them for the household, she notices over a period of time that there are stains on your shirt at more or less the same place. Over time these stains get worse and she realises that you have contracted a serious skin disease. One day she picks up the courage to talk to your wife as she has seen the effects of this disease before. In her village lives a man of God who teaches the scriptures. He is known for his faith in God and many leaders seek his council as he is wise and understands God’s ways.

One day as you get back from work, your wife talks to you about what the domestic has mentioned to her and you, after having tried various treatments with no success, you decide to go to her village and seek out this man of God. As you go to your office the next day, you ask for an appointment to speak to the owner of the company to ask for leave to go on this journey to a place you have never been before. The village you are going to is far away and you will need one of the company’s drivers to help with this long distance that needs to be undertaken. The owner of the business has sympathy for your situation and gives you permission to go on this journey as you are one of his most trusted seniors in the company. He needs you to deal with the affairs of the company and you need to be in good health to be able to continue with your responsibilities. 

You and the driver set off on this journey which is a few days’ travel and after many long hours of being on the road, you eventually get to the village that your domestic servant comes from. You make enquiries of where this man of God can be found and are directed to the outskirts of the village where he lives. After a few mountain trails and dusty roads, you and your driver eventually arrive at this home. You knock a few times at the door and after a while a young student answers the door. You ask the student to speak to the man of God but the student does not invite you or your driver inside, instead, he makes you wait outside as he goes to call the man of God. A few moments go by and the student returns to say that the man of God is busy and can’t speak to you now. 

You start to get irritated as you have travelled so far to see the man of God and he is “too busy” to come and speak to you. But somehow you try to remain calm and tell the student why you have come all this way. The student goes back inside and tells the man of God why you have come to him. The man of God gives an instruction to the student which he in turn gives to you. The instructions were simple. Go wash yourself in the river at the bottom of the valley where the cows live and drink their water. Wash yourself not once but seven times in the river and you will be healed.

Your irritation turns to anger. Surely, if all you had to do was wash yourself seven times, you could have done that at home in a beautiful mountain stream or perhaps a pristine beach. But no, this man of God wants you to go down to a river where the cows live and wash in the dirty muddy water. What kind of a man does not even have the decency to come out and talk to you because he is “busy”. Why come all this way for what! Take a bath in dirty water! What a waste of time! 

At that moment, your driver turns to you and says, “Sir, if the man of God had asked you to do a difficult thing, would you not have done it. Instead, he has told you to do a simple thing and this you will not do”. Still aggravated with the situation, you start to calm down a bit, and the driver starts to drive the vehicle to the river where the cows live. Once you are there, you look around you, the tall grass, the muddy water, to cows, the trees on the side of the river, and a peace you have not felt before comes over you. You take off your masks of leadership, corporate dominance, deal maker, and realise you are in the presence of something far greater than yourself. You realise that the next thing to take off is your clothes in front of your driver. First your shoes and jacket. And as you peel off one layer of clothing after another, the more vulnerable you become, the more humiliated you become, the less you become and you are exposed. No giant of the business world, just you, naked, damaged by the disease that has engulfed your body, but perhaps your ego more damaged than anything else.

You walk into the water and wash yourself in the muddy water before coming out. You turn around and go back into the water to wash again and again and again. Each time you go in and come out, the more humiliated you are than the time before. But something in your soul stirs the sixth time you are in the muddy water. A courage that flows over you. A determination that convinces you to wash one more time. You step into the water and walk in deeper than before. You are so deep that your head is covered by the muddy waters, and as you come out of the water, you know that something in your soul has changed. The man who left home to come on this journey is no longer. That man was proud, arrogant. This man is humbled. Your skin tingles and as you come out of the water, you look at your arms and chest, and the sores, the scars the disease gave you are no longer there. Each step out of the water reveals more healing of your body, but more importantly than your body, your soul has been healed. You are a new man. 

We read in 2 Kings Chapter 5 of Naaman, the commander of the Syrian Army.

Naaman, the great commander of the army of Aram (Syria), was a man of valor, celebrated in the courts of the king, feared on the battlefield, and revered by the soldiers who marched behind him. His armor shone with glory, but beneath it, his skin bore a silent shame: leprosy.

In the quiet corners of his household, whispers passed from servant to servant. They had seen the patches growing, the cloth bandages stained, the pain he tried to hide. Yet it was a servant girl—a young Israelite taken captive in war—who dared to speak first.

One morning, as she was tending to Naaman’s wife, she said gently, “If only my master would go see the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.”

Naaman’s wife hesitated. But Naaman overheard. He could have dismissed the girl—just a foreigner, a servant, a child. But something in her voice—calm, certain, unafraid—lingered in his heart.

He went to the king of Aram and told him what the girl had said. The king, eager for his commander’s recovery, sent letters and treasure to the king of Israel. Yet when Naaman arrived in Israel, the king tore his robes in fear.

But news of Naaman’s arrival reached Elisha, the prophet of God. He sent word: “Let him come to me, and he will know there is a prophet in Israel.”

Naaman went to Elisha’s house with his chariots, horses, and an entourage fit for a king. But instead of Elisha himself, a mere servant came out and said: “Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan River, and your flesh will be restored, and you will be clean.”

Naaman’s pride flared. “Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?” He turned away, furious.

But then, another voice spoke. A servant from among his own soldiers—one of his most trusted men—came beside him and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do something great, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be clean’?”

Again, Naaman paused. Once more, he could have silenced the voice. But again, he listened.

And so, the great commander descended from his chariot, stepped down from honor into humility, and entered the muddy waters of the Jordan. Once. Twice. Seven times. And on the seventh—

His flesh was clean. Not just healed—but restored like that of a child.

Naaman returned to Elisha, no longer in pride, but with gratitude and awe. He stood before the prophet and said, “Now I know there is no God in all the world except in Israel.”

He had found healing not by the word of a king, not through power or conquest—but through the voices of servants.

He had listened. And in listening, he was made whole.

Reflections:

Naaman’s story is a profound example of how humility and the willingness to listen to servants, opened the door for healing.

Three servants—each overlooked in their own way—led him toward truth:

• The servant girl who spoke of hope.
• The prophets servant whose message was one of challenge.
• A military servant, who reminded him that obedience matters more than pride.

In each of these, God was speaking.