When Lepers Become Leaders (Part 2) 2 Kings 7 – By Babatunde Olugboji
This week, we continue the series we began last week from the events recorded in 2 Kings 7, where God used four lepers to bring deliverance to a city drowning in desperation. From this powerful story, we are drawing life-changing lessons for anyone standing at the gate of impossibility.
Samaria was under siege. In ancient warfare, a siege was designed to suffocate a city into surrender. Nothing came in, and nothing went out. Food disappeared. Trade stopped. Hope faded. The famine became so severe that normal life collapsed under the weight of hunger, fear, and despair. And God divinely used these four men to deliver a whole city.
And here is our second lesson:
2. God Does Not Need Your Credentials; He Needs Your Availability
Elisha had prophesied. The king was in the palace. Priests were in the city. Soldiers stood at the walls. Yet on this occasion, God did not use any of them. He chose four lepers. These men had every reason to disqualify themselves. They had every reason to believe they were too broken, too rejected, too unclean, and too insignificant to be useful to God. They had reason to talk themselves down as unqualified.
Under the Law of Moses, lepers were required to warn others of their condition by crying, “Unclean! Unclean!” (Leviticus 13:45–46). They were excluded from normal community life and forced to live outside the camp. They were invisible to society, but they were not invisible to God. The people had pushed them aside, but God brought them to the center of His plan. They became available because they had nothing left to lose and nowhere else to go. Their desperation moved them, and God met them in their movement.
This is the mystery of divine election: God repeatedly chooses unlikely people for extraordinary purposes.
Moses was a fugitive tending sheep on the backside of the desert when God met him at the burning bush (Exodus 3). Gideon was hiding in a winepress when the angel of the Lord called him a mighty man of valor (Judge 6:11–12). David was tending sheep when Samuel came looking for the next king of Israel (1 Samuel 16:11–13). Mary was a young woman in an obscure village when the angel Gabriel announced that she had been chosen to carry the Savior of the world (Luke 1:26–28).
None of them appeared qualified.
But God does not call the qualified; He qualifies the called. Stop convincing yourself that God cannot use you because of your past, your background, your limitations, your failures, your diagnosis, or your social status. The story of the four lepers is God’s direct answer to that lie.
God is not searching for the most impressive person in the room. He is looking for the most available. He is not hunting for the most polished vessel on the shelf. He is looking for someone who will say, like Isaiah, “Here am I. Send me” (Isaiah 6:8). He is looking for someone who will say, “Lord, I may not have much, but I give You what I have. I will move when You speak.”
The four lepers did not become instruments of deliverance because they were impressive. They became instruments of deliverance because they were available. They moved, and God magnified their movement. Never underestimate what God can do through a person who is willing to take the next step.
To be continued.
Have a good week.
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