Way Too Easy

The story of Naaman comes from the Bible, in the book of 2 Kings 5.  Its is the story of a man who is befallen with an unfavorable fate.  He contracts the disease called leprosy, which is a skin disease with no cure.  Naaman tries going to the king in the land to solve his problem.  The king now gets upset because he knows that he has no power to heal.  When Elisha hears about it, he says "let him [Naaman] come now to me, and he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel.”  So he decides to try it and  goes up to the house of Elisha to be healed of his leprosy.  Upon his arrival, Elisha sends a servant out to tell Naaman that to be healed, he must go and wash himself in the river Jordan seven times.  Now Naaman isn't very happy about that.  He wanted some big grandiose miracle; he wanted a Hollywood healing.  Brooding and cross, Naaman mopes off to sulk about his situation.  A servant goes after him to try and talk it through with him.  In their conversation he says “If the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? how much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean?”.  After thinking it over, a sullen Naaman decides to follow the counsel of Elisha.  When he does so, he is cleansed from his disease. 
Often, I think that we're a lot more like Naaman than we know.  We, like him, want to be cleansed from our sins.  We, like him, hear that this healing can come from obeying scriptures or counsel of prophets, or answers to prayers.  So we try it.  We go to the house of Elisha.  We open the scriptures, or pray more frequently, or listen to the advice of our church leaders.  Here's the pitfall though.  We, like Naaman, don't like what we hear.  Its too simple, too easy, and really looks pointless.  So we don't do it.  For example, we hear that we should read our scriptures, pray, attend church, serve others, fulfill church responsibilities, pay our tithes etc, and then we don't like it.  We expect some grand miracle to occur every time we open the scriptures or do what we're suppose to when the reality is, that those miracle come from constant obedience to those principles. 

I know that when we do what God has asked us to do, when we keep the commandments, even the little ones, no matter how seemingly stupid or pointless they may appear, we are blessed for it and we, like Naaman, can be healed from the problems of this life. 
_Elder Halbert