This short YouTube sermon by Holly Furtick reflects on the biblical story of Naaman (a celebrated Aramean commander who suffered from leprosy) to teach about healing and change. Furtick emphasizes the distinction between "easy" and "simple," argues that pretending delays healing, and identifies acceptance of one’s situation as the foundational first step toward true change. She ties the message to modern pressures to appear fine (social media, filters) and urges listeners to stop blaming or shaming and to adopt an attitude that enables change.
Chapters
You can't confuse easy with simple. Easy and simple are not the same thing. In fact, every time that Naaman is going to take one of these simple steps, there is something easy that he could have done. But if he had gone with the easy way, he would have never received the healing that he needed. Let's look back at the story. I want to read verse one again so we can get in the flow. The king of Aram had great admiration for Naaman, the commander of his army, because through him the Lord had given Aram great victories. But though Naaman was a mighty warrior, he suffered from leprosy. This guy had it all. He was the commander of the army. And even though he was not an Israelite, the Bible tells us that the Lord had given him great victories. Even the king admired him. He was the man. Do you have anyone in your life that from your perspective, it looks like they have the perfect life? Maybe someone you follow on Instagram, maybe a family member, neighbor, celebrity. They have a great body, a great marriage, they have success in their job, they drive a nice car. And from the pictures that they post and the house that they live in and the clothes that they wear, they look like they have the ideal life. Can you think of a person in your mind that looks like that? Okay. The truth is that no one is exempt from suffering. No one. You can't be good enough to avoid it. You can't be rich enough to buy your way out of it. You can't be smart enough to evade it. At. At some point, everyone suffers, no matter how amazing they make their life look to you. Obviously, suffering comes in all shapes and sizes, right? It comes in short bursts and long hauls. It comes in the form of loneliness, addiction, illness, and hardship. It can be something beyond our control or something someone else caused, or something we caused ourselves by a series of bad decisions. But as I thought about this story and I thought about Naaman and how we all have some kind of hardship in our lives, I came to the conclusion that although we do all suffer, the people who I think suffer the most are the people who suffer alone. The people who pretend like everything is fine. Naaman suffered from leprosy. And the thing about leprosy is you can cover it up, at least for a little while, especially if your job requires you to wear armor. When I read between the lines of this story, I wonder how long Naaman tried to pretend like he was the most mighty warrior that everyone thought that he was. And I think about how the world we're living in right now is scary because it has never been easier to pretend like everything is okay. We don't just have Photoshop, we have live filters to cover up our wrinkles and our acne to give us better physique, to make our faces look flawless. We can post a picture of our clean house and our beautiful relationships and make our lives look amazing to everyone who's on the outside looking in. And this story is about Naaman's healing. But before he even gets to the Prophet to get the instructions for his healing, he has to take a few steps. Simple steps. And the first thing that Naaman has to do is accept his situation. When we pretend, we delay our healing and prolong our suffering. We cannot move forward towards healing, towards the change that we need until we have accepted. Accepted our situation. Accept. That's the first point. And it's complicated. But when we resist acceptance and we continue to pretend to everyone else and ourselves, we don't have to take any steps toward change. Even if you're suffering, even if your suffering is a situation that won't change, your attitude towards it can. Acceptance means that I stop blaming others from my situation. Acceptance means that I stop shaming myself for the decisions that I've made. Acceptance means I stop asking whose fault this is or why this is happening to me. Acceptance is the starting place for true change. Hey, thanks for watching. I hope that that encouraged you today. Make sure that you subscribe so that you don't miss out on other videos like this and I'll see you back here next time.
