The Seventh Dip

In 1928, Alexander Fleming left a petri dish uncovered before going on vacation. When he returned to his lab at St. Mary's Hospital in London, he found mold contaminating his bacterial cultures. Most researchers would have tossed it out. The dish looked ruined — messy, unscientific, beneath the dignity of a trained bacteriologist. But Fleming paused. He noticed the mold had killed the bacteria surrounding it. That contaminated dish became the discovery of penicillin, a medicine that would eventually save more than 200 million lives.

Naaman almost missed his healing for the same reason Fleming's colleagues would have discarded that dish — it looked too ordinary to matter. He was a decorated commander of Aram's armies, accustomed to grand gestures and impressive displays of power. When Elisha told him to wash in the muddy Jordan seven times, everything in him recoiled. The Abana and Pharpar rivers back home were cleaner, deeper, more worthy of a man of his rank. But his servants pressed him: if the prophet had asked something great, wouldn't you have done it?

So Naaman went down. Once. Twice. Five times with no change. Six times, still leprous. And on the seventh dip, his flesh was restored like that of a young boy.

God has never been impressed by our credentials or our preferences. He specializes in unlikely instruments — muddy rivers, moldy dishes, stuttering prophets, borrowed tombs. The miracle waits on the other side of our willingness to obey in ways that feel beneath us.