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Naaman, captain of the host of Syria, went to the Israelitish prophet, Elisha, to be cured of his leprosy. As he was a great man with his master, he expected some special ceremony done for him. Imagine his surprise and wrath when bidden to wash in the River Jordan.

At first Naaman went away in a rage; such advice ill-befitted his ideas of his needs. If it were enough that he should bathe in a river, why in Jordan? “Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel?” Why not wash in them and be clean? And Naaman turned and went away.

But his servants questioned him and said: “Had the prophet bid thee do some great thing, wouldst thou not have done it? How much rather then when he saith to thee ‘wash and be clean’?” Then Naaman yielded and was made whole.

This story is a picture of our own ways. We despise the remedy that is simple, and we feel sure that, had it been some great thing, we should have found it easier to do. We are unwilling to accept simple, natural explanations of our difficulties. We feel so because we think so highly of ourselves. We forget that the greatest things are often the simplest, and, if the natural things are too hard for us to do, it is because we lack that true greatness which sees and welcomes directness.