So so far we've talked about not wasting our health, not wasting our time, not wasting our work

and then last week Ben so brilliantly talked about not wasting our family,

particularly the relationships that we have as sons and daughters with our parents.

And so what's left to not waste? We got a few more weeks in the series. Does anybody think

ahead or you just kind of show up and it's like a, you know, roll the dice, see what happens?

Are some of you trying to work it out in your mind? What are the few things that are left? I'm

betting on X today. Well, I bet not too many people bet on this one today and we find the

the landscape for today's subject in a really powerful story in 2nd Kings chapter 5. I just want

to read a few verses of it and then we'll tell the rest of the story but it says in 1 Kings 5, 1

that Naman was the commander of the army of the king of Aram. Now that's just a simple

descriptor of who's going to be in this story. So we've got a guy named Naman who's a commander in

a mighty army at the time that this was written. He was a great man in the side of his master

and highly regarded because through him the Lord had given victory to Aram. But he was a valiant soldier

and he had leprosy. Now that's going to be a game changer for Naman because it doesn't matter

how valiant you are in battle. If you have leprosy ultimately it's going to be a degenerating process

in your life and take you away from peaking out at your best. But then the story changes a little

bit in verse 2. Now Bans from Aram had gone out and taken captive a young girl from Israel.

And she served Naman's wife. She said to her mistress, if only my master, that's Naman would see the

prophet who is in Samaria, he would cure him of his leprosy. Now if you don't know this story Naman

took this advice, he ultimately went to his king and he said can you give me a letter to go to

Israel to that king because apparently there's a prophet there and there's some sort of an

opportunity there and healing there. Naman goes to Israel, he ends up hearing from the messenger

...