Do You Want to Get Well?

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?”

John 5:2-6

“Would you like to get well?”  Are you kidding me?  Who asks someone that has been sick for 38 years if they want to get well?  What kind of ridiculous question is that?  Of course he wanted to get well!  Why in the world would Jesus ask such a question? 

There is another example in scripture of Jesus asking what seems to be a peculiar question.  In Matthew 20:29-34 there is a story of two blind men who, when they heard Jesus was coming, sat by the road side hoping he would heal them.  Jesus stopped and asked them, “What do you want me to do for you?”  What?!?!?  They were blind.  What else would they want this man known to heal people of their diseases and infirmities to do, other than to have their sight restored? 

These questions used to puzzle me.  Why would the all-knowing Lord of the universe ask the obvious?  While I know that there is much more to these scriptures and the implications are many, but one for me stands out and it has to do with these seemingly silly questions.  “Would you like to get well?” seems like a no-brainer.  Of course they did!  Of course we do too!  Or do we?

Jesus must be asking me the same thing today.  The answers seems obvious, but if they, are what is hindering me?  I lament constantly about my weight.  I want to lose weight.  I want to be self-disciplined.  I want to feel better and exercise like I know I should.  I want to make better use of my time.  I want to manage my money better and not buy impulsively and wastefully.   I want my words to be kinder and my patience longer.  And the list of my “illnesses” goes on.

So, do I want to get well?  Why do I continue to cling to things that are of the world and harmful?   Why do I continue the practices that I know are harmful to me when the same Jesus stands ready to heal and restore?  The fact is that everything we need to be “healed” is there and waiting.  God’s Spirit lives in us.  We have at our disposal the power of God Almighty.  We have been given a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.  Yes, that’s right, self-discipline is already ours! 

II Timothy 1:7 For God did not give us a spirit of fear and timidity, but a spirit of power, of love, and of self-discipline.

Maybe what Jesus was asking these men was not so much, “Do you want to get well?”, as He was, “Are you willing to do what I ask of you to get well?”  Just like He is asking of us.  The man at the Sheep Gate in John still thought that the healing power needed to make him well was in the bubbling pool that he could not get to.  Jesus said, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!”  Jesus was there and that is all that was needed. 

He is still all that is needed to heal us, to restore us, to rid us of any stronghold or habit that needs to be eliminated from our lives.  Whatever separates us from Jesus and from our restoration doesn’t have to.  Everything we need to eliminate it is already ours!  Are we willing to stand up, take up what he so freely gives us, and walk out in faith?

II Peter 1:3-4 By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life.  We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence.  And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises.  These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires.