Do You Want to be Well?

When it comes to taking care of our relational baggage, I’m reminded of Jesus coming to the pool of Bethsaida and seeing the man who had been sick for thirty-eight years. Jesus approaches because he sees that the man has been stuck in this place for a long time. Maybe you resonate with him?

Jesus approaches the man with a profound question, a question that I believe he’s asking you and me today: Do you want to be well?

Maybe this isn’t the first time this question has been asked of you. Maybe like the man that Jesus approaches, it’s been asked if you wanted to be well and like the man, you explained why that just wasn’t possible.

But Jesus didn’t ask if it was possible. Jesus asked if he wanted to be well. Jesus then proceeds to instruct the man to get up, take his mat, and walk.

Maybe you feel like you’ve been stuck in the same place for years. Every time hope of getting well came by, there was a reason you couldn’t make it. But maybe the question isn’t being at the right place at the right time with the right kind of help. Maybe it has more to do with putting forth the effort to get up, take your baggage, and put one foot in front of the other.

When it comes to the death and resurrection of Jesus, the resurrection wasn’t a foregone conclusion. No one expected him to rise from the dead. The same could be said of our stories. Dead people stay dead and broken people stay broken.

What’s counterintuitive about the resurrection is the same thing that can be counterintuitive about our stories: Our greatest defeat became our greatest opportunity. Ernest Hemingway put it well when he said, “The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.”

What made the resurrection so powerful is precisely the fact that it’s not what happens to dead people. The power of God's Spirit gives us the same thing it gave the resurrection: The power to do something that humanity doesn’t have the power to do on its own. This isn’t only an invitation to reverse the impacts of our childhood. It’s an invitation to experience God's healing and transforming work in us.