Do you want to be healed?

Source: IF: Equip 

This is a response to a devotional sent out by IF: Equip.

After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.

Now that day was the Sabbath. So the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed.” But he answered them, “The man who healed me, that man said to me, ‘Take up your bed, and walk.’” They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?” Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place. Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.” The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. (John 5:1-15)

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"Do you want to be healed?"

Sometimes, I'm not so sure.  It's way too easy to hang onto these hurts, my cyncism, my fear that it will always be this way.  I want to hope and trust, but I'm all too quick to say, "I just knew it wouldn't work.  It always goes wrong."

"Do you want to be healed?"

I want to believe that people are good at heart, but when things go badly, I am quick to judge others' motives.  I speculate and worry and spend way too much time wrapped up in rehashing the conflict.

"Do you want to be healed?"

But it's not my problem.  If THEY would change, everything would be fine.

"Do you want to be healed?"

It's impossible.  It's the same old cycle again and again.  If I could change I would have already.


"Do you want to be healed?"

But I am already healed.  I'm fine.  See, you can barely see these scars.  It's all good.

"Do you want to be healed?"

But I've been here for so long, and no one will help me.

"Do you want to be healed?"

I'm not sure I have enough faith.

"Do you want to be healed?"

Do I?

Do you?