“When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, He asked him, “Do you want to get well?””
(John 5:6 NIV)
We can’t assume the answer to this question. Not on the invalid’s behalf or our own. We must examine our hearts and decide if we are willing to do the work that comes along with getting well. Yes, Jesus can touch and heal, but are we ready to walk out our healing? For the paralytic by the pool; this would mean finding a whole new way of life. He would have to abandon the old habits, chronic thought patterns and unhealthy relationships that had sustained his condition for almost four decades.
I heard it in a podcast yesterday. Even though the speaker said it three times, I still had to pause the recording and write it down; put pen to paper to push it way down deep into my heart.
“The system I have in place is perfectly designed
to get the results I am getting.”
I think of the paralytic by the pool, resting on the edge of a miracle for thirty-eight years. He was never quite unhappy enough to fully submerge in the waters that might make him well. His routine was perfectly designed to achieve the same results he had always gotten.
Until Jesus steps in to his story and asks, “Do you want to get well?”
I wonder, if He were to show up on scene in your story today, what would you say? Don’t just blurt it out, but think on it a moment, first. Let Jesus’ words roll around in your soul before you commit to a yes, please and thank you.
Are you willing to walk away from the patio of excuse and infirmity and fully engage in the real work of living well? Can you rewrite the habits that got you to this place, in this condition? Will you swap out the mental scripts that keep you coming back to this collective brokenness with little to no hope of healing? Could you form new friendships that speak truth and hope instead of replaying the same old discourse of discouragement?
The man, when healed, would have to find a new way to fill his time. He’d need to seek out a life-giving social network. He’d have to create and keep a new identity as a restored person with a Jesus testimony.
Pain is the impetus of change.
We can feel pain and hunker down in it. We can gather grumpy friends and lay on the deck of life complaining about our inability to participate. We can inadvertently create a lifestyle of misery that we are quite comfy in.
Or we can let pain push us towards Christ; ready and willing to receive the healing and work out it’s transformation in our story.
“Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” At one the man was cured, he picked up his mat and walked.” (John 5:8-9 NIV)
Jesus healed the man and sent him to work. So much so that the Pharisees threw a fit about laboring on the Sabbath. Receiving a healing isn’t passive. It’s an act of faith followed by a lifetime of action.
Lord, give us the guts to ask for our healing and the tenacity to walk out a totally restored life. We realize that there may be habits, thought patterns and people we’ll need to give up as we work out the rehabilitation of our souls. Equip us with Your Spirit as we seek to think and live in a way that appropriately honors Your powerful touch in our story. Amen.