Monday Musings - Do you wish?

It was hard to decide what to write about today.  I feel like the Lord has been giving me so much rich food from His Word this week.  Perhaps it is because I have been in Colorado and can really focus and take all the time I want to soak it up.  Maybe I should learn from that??

I decided to go with what I read this morning.  I feel like we need to always be recounting what the Lord is teaching us daily.  Keep it fresh and pay attention to what He is doing now.

When Jesus saw Him lying there, and knew that he had already been a long time in that condition, 

He said to him, "Do you wish to get well?"  

John 5:6

This comes from the story of the Pool of Bethesda.  An angel would stir the waters and the first person in would receive healing.  This man could not get to the water fast enough in his condition.

I think this passage is so interesting.  The whole idea of an angel coming down - the angel of the Lord - is fascinating.  It speaks to heaven's grieving over disease.  It speaks of God continuing to interact with His people, even though, as a whole, they had moved far away from Him.

Why did Jesus pick this particular man?

I don't know, but I find it very curious.  I find the question He asks him fascinating as well - do you wish to get well?  I don't think Jesus would have asked this unless there was something in this man that drew that out.  Jesus is not cruel or uncaring.  He needed this man to address that question.

Do you wish to get well? 

Thirty eight years of disease, discouragement and being disillusioned.

Sound familiar?

Maybe not 38 years - maybe only a short time - or perhaps, you too, have been suffering for a very long time.  Perhaps you have grown accustomed to your own kind of paralysis or your own brand of illness.  I had to ask myself this question -

What am I living with that the Lord 

longs to give me freedom from?

Is He stirring in me that desire to get up, 

take my pallet and walk?

Why take the pallet?  It has to be a bit nasty.  It may have even been falling apart after many years of use.  Perhaps Jesus wanted him to take it to remind him of just what he had been freed from.  We are sometimes so comfortable in the crap (sorry - it just fits) we know that letting it go is scarier than the hope of freedom on the other side.

Let me assure you that the freedom on the other side is worth the risk of standing up on your weak legs.  

If Jesus bids you to do it - do it.  

In the words of Kelly Minter - whatever God is urging you to clear away cannot begin to be compared to what He ultimately wants to bring you.

Do you want freedom?

Do you wish to get well?

Praise God that we do not have to wait for a stirring of the waters.  He is here - He is near - He is waiting to give you freedom.

So if the Son makes you free you will be free indeed.

  John 8:36