August 8

"But he was a leper."—2 Kings 5:1.

I TOO am stricken with Naaman's disease.

All through the Bible I see that leprosy is a type and parable of sin. Does not my sin separate me from God and from the congregation of the holy? Does it not descend from father to son, generation after generation, a repellent and woeful and yet inevitable legacy? Does it not grow from less to more, until the whole head is sick and the whole heart is faint? And there is no ordinary effectual method of cure. I am helpless in the grip of the festering malady. I lie at its mercy. Nearer and nearer to me creeps the shadow of death.

But for me God opens Naaman's door of hope.

It may be such a little thing that brings me the promise of recovery,—little as the captive maid carried from Israel into Syria in some border foray. It may be a verse of the Bible which I have read a hundred times. It may be a seemingly trivial occurrence in my daily life. It may be a word dropped into my heart by a godly friend. It may be the influence of a child. It may be a sentence in a letter. And at once I know that there is a way of deliverance, a sure and successful medicine for my sore disease.

After all, God—the God of salvation—is mightier than my leprosy and evil. Not all the perfumes of Arabia can sweeten my hands. Not all the multitudinous seas can wash out my stain. But where my sin abounds, His grace much more abounds. Iniquities prevail against me, a Psalmist cries, but he adds, As for our transgressions Thou shalt purge them away. In my heart I shall write this "Thou" in letters of bright gold. The "Me" is feeble, evil, discredited. The "Thou" is infinite, all-gracious, divine.