“After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. In these lay many invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” 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 making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.” Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk” (John 5:1-9NRSV).
You know this story. Jesus asked the man did he want to be healed, and the man started telling Jesus why he couldn’t get healed. But that was not the question. Too often we don’t listen, and we give excuses on a missed ‘why’. We are too absorbed in our own everyday crazy that we can’t hear at times.
Now, yes rightfully so, this man had been an invalid for a long time. That would traumatize and anyone and place them in a state of desperation to do whatever, however one could to get better. Yes, the stirring of the water provided healing. But that day, the man didn’t need to get into the water, he needed healing. His healing was not in getting into the water, but in what Jesus offered.
Our healing is in Jesus, not what we can do, when we can do it, how we can do it. But in Jesus. That takes a load off your mind.
Please hear my heart on what I’m about to say: Yes, there is another tragedy. No, I have not read it yet. Yes, I’m concerned. But I am more concerned that we, as a people, are pulled again into such negativity and hurt, fueling more unforgiveness and anger and that it keeps us in a negative state of mind. And that’s what the enemy wants.
Oh hell yeah, I’m tired of it, but I ask that we not be eaten up with the negative, but allow God’s peace to permeate our hearts. Yes, it’s wrong, yes something must be done. But don’t let it eat us alive, as we become like the disabled man- hurting and can’t get help. If we as a people could recognize that, then we could make a major change for us, as positivity could flow, and not the negativity. The enemy has kept us bound for too long, trying to break out of crazy through our anger and hurt. Can we start to give it to Jesus, and watch what he does with it? I didn’t say condone any of this- I don’t. But I do say give your hurt, your anger to Jesus. I have to- for my own sanity. enough for now.
