Lowly things

A week or so ago, I was reading the Naaman story in 2nd Kings. Naaman is this "very important person", but he gets the very common and fatal disease leprosy. A Jewish servant girl of his suggests that a prophet in her country can heal him. So he and his entourage travel a long way and when they finally get to this prophet, the prophet a) won't come out to see him and b) through a messenger tells him to take a bath in the local river (vs. 10).

Naaman was really mad having had his expectations of lofty magic dashed to pieces (vs. 11). He kind of has a petulant metropolitan fit exclaiming

Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?” So he turned and went off in a rage (vs. 12).

So that's the back story to this line that caught my attention for a week

Naaman’s servants went to him and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed’! (vs. 13)”

 As I look over what I thought about my life from ages 10-20, I was oriented toward "great things". I pursued excellence and recognition. When I thought about what I wanted to do in life, I wanted to do things with awesome humanitarian merit. So being a missionary in a far off country was good. But solving for world peace was also ok.

But as any of the dozen people who read this blog know, that's not what I'm doing now at all. I'm a suburban mom who drives a minivan on nicely paved streets, in a friendly neighborhood, with good schools and convenient shopping. Like Naaman, this has felt like a downshift, a turn in the wrong direction. But instead I have been learning to live in a completely different dimension than I thought possible.

It used to be a black and white distinction between awesome or awful, advancing or retreating. We live in a culture of "dream big". I'm learning to dream deeper. When a girl has a baby and can't buy diapers, the need is obvious. But on my street, the needs are rarely that obvious but just as compelling.

We're into our third year at this address, and the sidewalk interactions are building a foundation of friendship that's allowing us unusual access into our neighbors lives. Our dreams are not about our neighborhood but our neighbors, the ones on our street. And I'm not thinking about how to solve world peace or start a movement, but how to bring living water to the dry places in the lives of my "common, suburban" friends.

I would be willing to move my family to the ends of the earth or some other "great thing" if God had asked that of us. But our ordinary, not glamorous, street is turning to be ok too, more than ok.