John 5:1-9
Afterward Jesus returned to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish holy days. Inside the city, near the Sheep Gate, was the pool of Bethesda, with five covered porches. Crowds of sick people—blind, lame, or paralyzed—lay on the porches. One of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, “Would you like to get well?”
“I can’t, sir,” the sick man said, “for I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up. Someone else always gets there ahead of me.”
Jesus told him, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!”
Instantly, the man was healed! He rolled up his sleeping mat and began walking!
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
I did my weekly shopping today, and as I put away the groceries, toiletries, and household cleaners, I collected the plastic bags and set them aside for recycling. I had purchased some fabric and a spool of thread, and when I got everything put away, the thread was nowhere to be found. I knew that I had gotten home with it. I was pretty sure I had seen it in one of the grocery sacks, and a check of the receipt said that I had purchased and paid for a spool of thread. So I went to the closet to look through some items still in the bags… perhaps it fell to the bottom of one of these sacks. I checked all four bags… three times! I looked at least that many times in my laundry/sewing room. (I’ll admit… it would be easy to lose something there!)
I considered checking the emptied shopping bags, but I was pretty sure that the thread wasn’t there. Quite frankly, I didn’t want to spend the time to go back through each of those plastic bags. But I finally realized that I needed to do this… and sure enough – the thread was in one of them. There is an old adage that says that “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” I thought of this as I went through the bags in the closet for the third time! And I thought of this adage as I read today’s scripture verses.
Until a few years ago, I had studied this passage and thought, “How wonderful that Jesus healed this poor man who could not get to the pool to be healed.” Then I heard someone point out that the man had lain virtually right beside the pool for THIRTY-EIGHT YEARS! Surely to goodness in that length of time, he could have persuaded someone to push him over into the healing waters! Since I wasn’t there to see exactly how close he lay, I will not judge this man any further. But it appears that Jesus offered him amazing grace and mercy in healing him… that his excuse was fairly weak…that perhaps he was content to wallow in self-pity rather than make the effort to become well.
Don’t we all do this much of the time? Don’t we often find it more comfortable to stay where we are and dredge up excuses or blame someone or something else for our troubles? Call it laziness, self-pity, ignorance, or just plain lack of ambition or desire to do better – or even a lack of faith… we all “lie by the pool” from time to time rather than make the effort to roll on over, fall in, and make a change! That Jesus pulls many of us up by the bootstraps and takes care of us anyway is astounding and incredible to me! For the life of me, the only way I can explain it is that He loves us far more than we can comprehend… and much more than we will ever deserve.
So where are you “going in circles” these days? Where are you repeating the same things… and hoping for different results? Where have you made excuses, rather than get up and get going? Let’s face it… if you haven’t “fallen in the pool” under your own power by now – and nobody’s pushed you in – it’s a pretty sure bet that it’s not happening anytime soon. Where do you need to implement this challenge in your own life? Where do you need to call on Jesus to heal you and set you on a new course? Isn’t it time you trusted Him, picked up your mat and began walking? Or are you content to lie at the water’s edge and make excuses?
©2013 Debbie Robus
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