Adventures in Student Ministry

Over the last few weeks, we’ve talked about being offended by the words people say, the things they don’t say, and the things people physically do. For today’s discussion, let’s go to 2 Kings 5:9-11

For context, there was a king who had a mighty warrior named Naaman. However, that man had a disease called Leprosy. In certain cultures, if you had Leprosy, you were made to live outside of the community, away from people. One day, his servant told him of a prophet in Israel who could heal him. So, he asked his King for permission to travel to see the Prophet. After being given permission, he packs up lots of gold and riches and makes the journey. After the journey, this happens.

⁹ So Naaman went with his horses and chariots and waited at the door of Elisha’s house. ¹⁰ But Elisha sent a messenger out to him with this message: “Go and wash yourself seven times in the Jordan River. Then your skin will be restored, and you will be healed of your leprosy.”

¹¹ But Naaman became angry and stalked away. “I thought he would certainly come out to meet me!” he said. “I expected him to wave his hand over the leprosy and call on the name of the Lord his God and heal me! ¹² Aren’t the rivers of Damascus, the Abana and the Pharpar, better than any of the rivers of Israel? Why shouldn’t I wash in them and be healed?” So Naaman turned and went away in a rage.

Ask: Why is Naaman angry?

Simply put, he’s angry because Elisha didn’t come out to see him. He brought all kinds of gold and riches and was ready to come and stand face-to-face with Elisha, yet Elisha himself didn’t even come out to see him. What offended him here is that his expectations of how things would go down were not met.

Ask: Have you ever been in a situation where you were expecting someone to do something for you in a certain way, and they didn’t? How did that make you feel?

Disappointment is a hard thing to carry and causes many issues in our lives. Every time we are in a similar situation, we begin to see others as the first person who offended us, even if what has happened is completely different. We begin to speak bitterly about people or people who are similar to the one who hurt us, and once again, it can lead us to withdraw from being part of the community as a whole.

Sometimes the offense comes through situations like what we just read. Naaman had an expectation of how the prophet should do something. Prophet didn’t do anything wrong, it just didn’t work that way.

Sometimes, it happens because the person who let us down simply is not walking in what they need to be. They could be dealing with their own major issues, and unfortunately, a side effect of that issue is getting hurt. These major issues could range from unexpected life situations to the consequences of sinful activities. In either case, they did not purposefully mean to let you down.

The question becomes, how do we respond to this kind of situation?

First, we have to humble ourselves. We must be willing to stop and ask hard questions: Is what this person failed to do really important? Has my life really been affected by their actions?

Then, we need to be honest with ourselves. Why are we disappointed? Have we put unfair expectations on the person who hurt us? Did they know that we were expecting a certain response?

We need to be rooted in love and willing to open up to that person and let them know how their actions made us feel. Again, it may be possible that they didn’t know we had been hurt.

Finally, we must be continually filled via prayer, worship, and being in the word. When we find our validation in Christ, being offended by what others don’t do becomes harder to do.

It should be stated that even though we walk through this process, it doesn’t mean that what happened didn’t hurt. But even if they did it on purpose, we have to learn to let go of the bitterness and forgive them. Being mad at them and holding on to the bitterness doesn’t hurt anyone else but us.

Ask: Now that we’ve talked about how to handle things if we’ve been offended by this, what should we do if we have offended others?

Much like what we’ve talked about in previous lessons, we need to start by humbling ourselves and being honest with ourselves.  We need to be able to take people’s feelings into account when we are approached. Again, feelings don’t overrule truth, but they should be considered.

If we are rooted in grounded in love, then this should lead us to try and restore that relationship with that person. We do that by apologizing for what we did. If it’s a situation caused by something in our control, we do our best to avoid that situation in the future. Then as always, we actively work to be filled via the scriptures, prayer, and worship.