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Starting with Jesus

Heather Bennett

Katie Chitwood

Reflect and Renew March 2023

Blessings From Heaven

A Faithful Slave

For two years, my neighbor ministered to me, always in love and kindness and never holding judgment. She listened to my bitter stories. She heard my voice raised in anger as I complained about the suffering of the world. Through her ministry and little ways to me, God brought me home to Him. Welcome to Reflect and Renew. Hey, I'm Katie. I'm so glad that you'll be joining me today. We will be learning and growing together in our walk with Jesus. You will surely be encouraged and challenged as we study week by week and hear from the experiences of others. Our story this week is probably a familiar one to many of us. It's the story of Little Maid and Captain Naaman. I don't know about you, but I have read this story from the book, My Bible Friends, probably a hundred times to my boys when they were little. Such a simple story, such a sweet story, but there's so much more depth to it, showing us hope, forgiveness, and faith. Have you been able to read the devotional that Merle Poirier wrote? Each week we use her devotional as a springboard for our discussion and the experiences that are shared by Christians from all around the country. You can find that devotional at our website, startingwithjesus.com slash renew, or you can always email us at renewatstartingwithjesus.com and let us know to send you the devotional each week. You can sign up so that it comes straight to your inbox every single week so you can read it and join us for our discussion. Let's turn in our Bibles to 2 Kings chapter 5. This tells us the story of Little Maid and Naaman. This story is just absolutely incredible, and we don't have time to go really in depth to get into all the little things that we can see, but I want to challenge you to study it and read it for yourself, maybe in a quiet moment that you can find during the week. So what happens? We have Naaman. Who is he? The captain of a Syrian army, and he was great. He was honorable. The king liked him, and the Lord had been giving him victories over Israel. But what had happened? He was a leper. Lepers were the outcasts of society. It was devastating. There was no cure. It was pretty much a death sentence when you became a leper. Then you were isolated from your family because it was so contagious. So he was navigating all these things, and at the same time, he had a little girl. The Bible says a young girl who was a captive. She had been brought back from the land of Israel, and she waited on Captain Naaman's wife. What's interesting is we don't even know her name, but it was her faith and her willingness to speak up to her mistress that led Naaman on a journey. First he went to the king of Syria, getting permission to go to the king of Israel, and the king of Israel then ended up freaking out because he's like, what on earth? How am I supposed to heal this guy? But Elisha finds out and says, send him to me. Naaman goes to prophet Elisha, and then his pride is hurt when Elisha doesn't even come out and tell him what to do. No, he sends his servant to tell Naaman to go wash in the muddy Jordan River seven times, and he'll be well. How does Naaman respond? He's like, yeah, right. Are you kidding? I have places that are so much better than the Jordan River, and he starts to go home. But who reaches out? Who calls to him and says, can you please reconsider? It's his servants. I get the feeling that Naaman was beloved by his servants because little maid, she wants to help him. His servants want to see him well. He's really a beloved master. He goes to the River Jordan, dips how many times? Seven times. And then what happens? He is well. So Merle asked the question in our devotional, who is the star of the story? Who is it? Well, there's quite a few characters in this story, isn't there? It's obviously not the king of Israel because where was his faith? He's like, this guy, my enemy, wants me to make him well. Yeah, right. What about Captain Naaman? Is he the star? Well, he's the one with the problem. And then when he's told what to do, he's so proud that he doesn't want to do it. What about Elisha? He's the one that went and actually worked with God and Naaman was healed. The servants, because they said, hey, why don't you just do it? That's a little thing. Or what about Little Maid? Why could we consider her the star of this story? Well, first of all, think about it. She was a captive. Would you want to be a captive? Or if you're captive, how are you feeling? Are you angry, frustrated, bitter? She was a child. We're not talking a grown woman. We're talking a young girl, as the Bible says. Not only was she young. She was also a girl. In that society, oftentimes women were not looked upon with the same respect that men were. She had faith. In fact, she says to her mistress in 2 Kings 5, verse 3, If only my master were with the prophet who is in Samaria, for he would heal him of his leprosy. Do you hear that conviction? That faith? It was her faith that carried Naaman and his servants through. That led them to the one who could help them. It was her faith, her belief in the power of God that worked through the prophet that led to Naaman being ultimately healed. Have you ever been a faith supporter? Stood in the gap for someone when their faith was so low? They were discouraged, not knowing what to do. There was no hope. I recently had a friend call me in complete despair. There was an unexpected loss in their family, and they were devastated. I listened, I sympathized, I cried right along with her. But then, when everything kind of had settled down, I spoke hope, I spoke courage, I spoke Bible promises. I reminded her of how God had led them in the past and how he would not abandon them today. God knew about this loss before it ever happened, and he would carry them through. By the time we hung up, and over the next few weeks, she had hope, she had courage. She would text me words of hope and faith, and yes, this unexpected loss was devastating in more ways than one. And yet, it was their faith that has grown through this experience. This week, we're going to hear from Dana and her experience with her neighbor, Salita. Dana had been hurt by religion in her childhood. She was very bitter, she was angry with God, and although she didn't have leprosy like Naaman, she was carrying the disease of hatred, bitterness, and animosity toward religion. Then the pandemic happened, and now she's isolated, she's living in fear and anxiety. It's eating her up. But God used Dana's neighbor to minister to her, and that support was what brought her to a saving relationship with Jesus. Let's hear that story. I know that it was more than coincidence that put me in this isolated area, where almost every day the landscape is so beautiful, I feel as close to God as I did when I was a young girl and leaned heavily on Him. Every day I saw Him in the beauty that surrounded me, and when His timing was right, when I was fully saturated in the glory of His creation, I met my new neighbor, Salita, who happened to be of the same denomination that I was raised in. But, truth be told, I wasn't excited to discover this bit of news. I had been hurt by the church of my youth many years ago, and I had no desire to go back to it. For two years, my neighbor ministered to me. Always in love and kindness, and never holding judgment, she listened to my bitter stories of the legalistic church I grew up in. She heard my voice raised in anger as I complained about the suffering of the world. She was silent during my confession of my fear of God and how, sometimes, I wished for Him to just come and be done with it all. She heard me say that I didn't care if I was saved or not. And at that point, I didn't care. The mass shootings, the wars, the climate change, the state of the world made me just want it all to end, whether I was saved or not, and I firmly believed that I was in the not camp. Then, the pandemic began, and I was living in a state of near-constant anxiety. Everything was so confusing in the beginning. So much was unknown. And I can remember, you know, just ordering our groceries online, driving an hour down to the store to pick them up, opening the trunk in the parking lot as an attendant put them in, then driving away, back home, and I would leave the groceries in the car overnight so that anything that might be on the groceries would be gone by the next day. Sometimes, I left them out there two or three days. It was mid-April. I had not seen my two granddaughters since the 6th of March. I was used to seeing them every weekend. My heart ached to see them. I cried every day. My anxiety continued to ramp up. I lived in constant fear, fear that the world was ending and God was coming to punish the earth. I knew I would be punished, and I tried to reconcile myself to my fate. But most of the time, my heart was filled with worry for my granddaughters, and I was worried about what they might suffer. And then a day came in April. I went out for a walk with my dogs, and my whole life changed. I went out one way, and I returned home a different person. I had been thinking about Moses and how incredibly gutsy it was of him to demand to see God's glory, and then God actually agreed to this demand. And I was suddenly tired, tired of being afraid, tired of running from God, exhausted by all of the anger and bitterness I had been carrying for years. I stood in the middle of that dirt road, and I looked up to the sky, and with all of my heart and soul, I cried out, God, please let me know you, really know you, so I don't have to be afraid anymore. For the first time in my life, I felt hope, and I felt lighter when I returned from my walk. God did not keep me waiting. That afternoon, Salita sent me a link with a text and suggested that I listen to the sermon. It was a message given by Dr. Pavel Goya, and she said that he told a story that was similar to one of my stories that I had shared with her. It was something that had happened on a camping trip that made me question my faith. Dr. Goya apparently had a similar story, and my neighbor wanted me to hear it. I listened to the whole sermon, and not once did I hear him tell the story she was talking about. But I did hear about the love of God, and from that one sermon, my brain caught fire, and for the next two years, I consumed anything. Books, video sermons, online church services, whatever I could get my hands on. I was waking up at three in the morning to put on my headphones and listen to sermons. I publicly gave my heart to Jesus on April 9, 2022. My neighbor Salita came to witness my baptism. We often joke that the text she sent, I always tease her that it was the wrong link, but it was the message that God meant for me to receive. God showed me his glory that day, and I have seen it in every day since. My neighbor, like the little maid, was placed on this mountain to live next to me to do God's goodwill. She was faithful to his calling, and through her ministry and little ways to me, God brought me home to him. Isn't this story inspiring? We never know our influence and what a difference it'll make in the lives of those around us. You know, God puts people in our paths for us to be a witness to, an example to. We need to be praying for those around us, our neighbors, our acquaintances, our work colleagues, our church family. We need to be reaching out to them, supporting them, standing in the gap for them when they are discouraged, when they're at the end of their rope, when they feel despair. God wants to use us, you and me, in our lives every day to help and encourage those around us. This week, our challenge is to learn a hymn that's not very well known, but it goes right along with our topic for the week. The song is, I Need the Prayers. Have you heard it before? It's a beautiful song, and I want to read the words to the first verse and the chorus for you. I need the prayers of those I love, while traveling o'er life's rugged way, that I may true and faithful be, and live for Jesus every day. I want my friends to pray for me, to bear my tempted soul above, and intercede with God for me. I need the prayers of those I love. Do you want to pray for your friends? Do you want your friends to pray for you? It is those prayers in times of trials that will help us, that will bear us up, that will lead us on. Something that I have enjoyed is having a prayer partner. We've been praying together for about a year and a half now, and we try to pray every week. It doesn't always happen, but we're pretty consistent about praying at least two to three times a month. We share what's been happening, we get caught up, and then we pray for each other, for the challenges in our lives. It's been wonderful to see how God has been answering our prayers through the ups and downs of life. I want you to try that. Is there someone that you can be a prayer partner with? Doesn't have to be long, doesn't have to take a lot of time, but just someone that you can pray with on a regular basis so that we are giving and gaining the support in prayer. Dear Lord, thank you so much for the people that you put in our lives that can help to encourage us, that can help to lift us up, help us to look for those that we can lift up, that we can help and we can encourage. Be with us through our times of trial. Be with us through our times of joy. Help us to draw closer to you. In Jesus' name, amen. This podcast is sponsored by Starting With Jesus. To find out more about other programs or to find out the links that were shared in this podcast, just check out the description box below.

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Reflect and Renew March 2023

A Faithful Slave

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Blessings From Heaven

A Faithful Slave

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