By faith, and not by sight, we know and confess that God is present and active in His world, always. That God, in the midst of human affairs, is quietly working out His great plan of salvation.

Naaman was a man who had everything – power, status, esteem, success, riches. He was beloved by his king, beloved by his soldiers, beloved by the people of Syria, feared by the people of all the surrounding nations, including Israel. But . . . there was just one problem – Naaman was also a leper.

This business of Elijah leading Elisha from Gilgal to Bethel to Jericho to the Jordan River and beyond. What is this all about? I would suggest that it is to teach Elisha and to teach us that our faith has a holy geography that we need to know and to honor, and in which to make our spiritual home.

King Ahaziah really should have known better. Maybe he had not been old enough to be there with his father Ahab on Mt. Carmel the day God had sent down fire from heaven to consume the offering and to put to flight the prophets of Baal. But surely he had heard about that day.