When God asks you to do something that seems useless.

I was reading the other day in Luke 17:11-16, and something seemed strange about this passage.

Jesus is walking along and comes across 10 lepers. From a safe distance they cry out to Him to have mercy on them (heal them). Jesus simply responds by telling them to go show themselves to the priests.

Now the priests are the ones who probably did the initial exam and declared them to be lepers. This then forced them out of society, becoming literal outcasts. I can’t imagine the public embarrassment. To be told to go back to the priests to basically be examined again was being told to go back to the place where this all began. That was a painful  place with painful memories. Why go back them? What else could the priests tell them? Weren’t the lepers appealing to Jesus?

What were they supposed to say when they got there? “Um, yes, we were just checking to see if we are still lepers.” Why be sent back to this place of grief and trauma? Was Jesus really sending them back to where the devastating news came to them, that they would be forced away from all their friends and family simply because they had contracted a disease? I can’t imagine how life altering that would be, in that day to be declared a leper.

There was something in what Jesus told them to do that seemed utterly useless. Not only that, it would risk more pain and exposure to a life that was sentenced to the shadows. Why didn’t Jesus simply heal them like He did everyone else?

The 10 lepers decided to go. Perhaps it was just because they really had nothing left to lose. Pride was no longer an issue. What was the worst that could happen? The passage says “They went…”, and as they went they were healed! Simple obedience. They decided that there was no point to being hindered by painful memories.

There are many times when Jesus will ask us to do something simple that may seem to have no point at all. We may ask Him something, already expecting what His response will be, and then He’ll take us by surprise with an unexpected request of His own! The 10 lepers received the answer to their prayers when they said, “What the heck, lets do what Jesus said, even if it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.”

God had a custom built healing package for them. He would get too bored if He healed the same way every time. He is unpredictable in His creativity. What will He come up with next? How will He respond to your request? Will He tell you to drop your nets on the other side of the boat, after you have been fishing unsuccessfully all night (see John 21)?

Sometimes we are used to doing things that are truly useless and know all too well how dumb we feel afterward. This can also cause a hesitation with in us when we feel God telling us to do something like that on purpose. But obedience even in these areas can break open a miracle. Simple obedience is the product of simple trust.

Jesus’ request for the lepers to go be examined again was simple, yet challenging based upon their personal history. We can also over complicate  what He asked us to do for similar reasons.  Ultimately His intention is not to harm us, but to heal us, and that is the point to when He asks us to do something that would seem useless.