Monday of the 3rd Week of Lent
2 Kings 5:1-15ab
When I was a boy, our family car stopped running while Dad and I were visiting one of his friends. A big, powerful engine… completely frozen. Dad and his friend tore the engine apart and discovered the problem: a tiny metal piece called a “keeper” that held a piston in place. Just a little part, no bigger than your fingertip. But without it, the whole engine was useless.
Again and again in Scripture, God works through small voices:
- A shepherd boy defeats a giant.
- A widow’s two coins outweigh a fortune.
- A child’s lunch feeds a crowd.
- And today, a little slave girl starts the miracle that heals Naaman.
I think the lesson is clear. We should never dismiss someone because they seem insignificant. God chooses whomever He wills, not whoever makes sense to us.
The slave girl is a perfect case in point. On the one hand, she had no power, no position, no influence. On the other, she did have the courage to speak the truth she knew: “If only my master would go to the prophet in Israel…”
Because she spoke, a man was healed. And that healing began with something very small: one person willing to speak, and another willing to listen, even to someone he could have easily ignored.
This raises two questions for us:
First: Who are the little voices in my life? Who might God be speaking through that I tend to overlook? A child… a spouse… a friend… a stranger… even someone who irritates me.
Second: To whom might I be the little voice? Maybe God wants to use one small word from me – a word of encouragement, an invitation, a reminder about prayer, a quiet act of kindness — to start something good in someone else’s life.
Sometimes the engine of grace in someone’s life is waiting for one tiny “keeper”— one small voice willing to speak. Let us ask Almighty God for the grace to hear that voice ourselves, and to be that voice for others.
Mark 10:45 