Jesus said to him, “Do
you want to get well?”
“Sir,”
the sick man answered, “I don’t have a man to put me into the pool when the
water is stirred up, but while I’m coming, someone goes down ahead of me.”
(John 5:6-7)
Jesus asks one of his famous questions, and the crippled
man’s response seems almost patronizing. Like, “Clearly you don’t understand
how this thing works. Let me explain it to you. These are the steps necessary
for me to achieve healing, and yet clearly they aren’t working for me.”
He is answering with methodology and inability. Jesus is
asking a question of desire and faith.
How often I have this same idea in my mind about how
things should work, how to get from A to B. How to be healed. How God’s
promises should be fulfilled. But, like this man’s idea, many of mine are
rooted in works, not faith. Jesus offers a gift, but so much more than just the
gift of the end result – Jesus offers freedom from a crippling, enslaving way
of thinking. Jesus offers the freedom of faith. Jesus offers freedom through
and through.
Jesus asks a question that cuts through to desire, to
worldview, to understanding and perception of God – how he works, his
character. He wants to reveal to us how small our view is of his love and his
graciousness. He wants us to see that his gifts are better than anything we
could earn.
May Jesus open our eyes to who he really is. May he awaken
faith in us, trust in him and his goodness, not some formula or process. May
our hearts be opened to his gifts – more than we can ask, more than end
results, but a new creation from start to finish.
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