hat? You mean it’s been here the whole time?”

 

For the past two weeks I had been in Bermuda for an evangelism field school. The beaches were breathtaking, the people were marvelous, and things went well evangelistically. The only thing that wasn’t perfect was the food.

 

Oh, the food was good; the challenge was getting it. The Bermuda Conference had generously given us bus passes for getting around, but the bright pink buses were all asleep by the time our meetings ended around 9:30. If we didn’t get supper before the meeting, we had to throw ourselves on the mercy of our hosts.

 

Our hosts went way beyond gracious. They made special trips to restaurants on the way home. Yet sometimes we were on our own, and we had to be creative: brave the streets at night (something we had been told not to do) or just shamelessly ask for a ride. For the first two weeks we were on the island we had to ask for rides, get a lift with someone who was already going, or hire an entourage to escort us to the nearest food oasis. We wracked our brains trying to answer the burning question: Where can we find food?

 

Then we discovered something that ended our agony.

 

One evening as we made our way into the house, we gathered around the kitchen island to determine where the nourishment would be procured. Our host mentioned a restaurant called Upper Crust in the area. It had a decent menu, he said, and we should look it up in the phone book. I had checked before, to no avail. Nevertheless I was so hungry I pulled out the phone book again.

 

I discovered that the Upper Crust was not only close; it was located on the very route we walked to the bus stop every morning—every morning!

 

To make matters worse, it was run by two Indians who made some of the best curry I’ve ever eaten. It was so good that we ate there every other night—and they began calling us at home to see if we were coming. The portions were huge, the price was right—and it was there the whole time. We spent weeks stressing out, asking for rides, hoping someone would take pity on us—all for nothing.

 

The whole thing reminds me of Naaman, who, as you know, suffered from leprosy and sought out Elisha for healing. Upon finding Elisha, Naaman was told to dip in the Jordan River seven times.

 

“But Naaman was angry and went away, saying, ‘Behold, I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call upon the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the place and cure the leper. . . . So he turned and went away in a rage” (2 Kings 5:11, 12, ESV).*

Naaman expected God to just plop the blessing he needed in his lap with some sort of Jedi hand wave. Instead, God provided a solution that involved Naaman taking a dip in a river—a river Naaman didn’t like.

 

Naaman would have missed his chance at healing were it not for his servants telling him, “My father, it is a great word the prophet has spoken to you; will you not do it? Has he actually said to you, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” (verse 13).

 

I wonder how many times we bring our prayer requests to God, believing and waiting for Him to bend the laws of nature on our behalf and plop a blessing in our lap, when in fact He has put practical solutions in our path. God does miracles; but sometimes God brings supernatural solutions through natural means that are right in front of us.

 

This month, assess those resources around you, especially those in your local congregation and the services provided in your community. Let your needs be known. You might be tempted to think there is no one in church or the community who can direct you where you need to go. Naaman didn’t think the Jordan River would cleanse him—at first. Neither did I think checking the phone book again would lead me to discover the curry that was so close by.

 

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