DAILY BYTE
In John’s Gospel, Jesus seems to know things. It is clear that whenever he engages people in conversation, he sees something of their very souls. In John 1 Jesus looks into Nathanael’s heart and finds no deceit there. In John 4 Jesus understands the Samaritan Women’s promiscuity before she even confesses it to him, and here in John 5, Jesus begins this conversation with a question that is so piercing and challenging that it plainly ‘knows’ what is in the human soul.
“Do you WANT to be made well?”
This is a question that anyone who has ever cried a pool of tears needs to grapple with.
I wish that I had understood this at the beginning of my ministry, because it would have saved me so much wasted time and effort if I had earlier understood that not everyone actually does want to be well.
I remember an occasion when I worked as a Youth Pastor, where I spent close on three years counselling this teenage girl who was struggling with anorexia. Three years of praying and sharing, of constant breakdowns and failed efforts to help, before one day we both came to a quite serious realisation.
She didn’t actually want to be well.
Her anorexia – it was her crutch, it had somehow become part of her identity. It gathered others around her and brought her the attention she desired. She just didn’t want to do what she needed to do to be well, she didn’t want to take responsibility for her illness. She thought she did for a number of years, but she actually didn’t.
There may be parts of our lives that have become beat up, that aren’t really functional anymore. They’re broken and are ultimately both disruptive and damaging. But here’s the key issue – like an old, worn and comfy t-shirt we just can’t bear to part with them.
Those habits we’ve formed, desires we have, character traits we’ve allowed to develop over the years – we have grown used to them, so comfortable with them that they even define us to the point they are just plain part of us.
We are aware that they may not be the prettiest part of us, that they are even destructive, so we hide them behind lies and excuses, pretensions and stories. As the old preacher’s saying goes: “Denial is not a river in Egypt.”
PRAY AS YOU GO
Loving Lord, open my eyes to see what I may be hiding, and open my heart so that I may confess it, own it, and entrust you with it. Amen.
FOCUS VERSE
John 5:6 MSG
When Jesus saw him stretched out by the pool and knew how long he had been there, he said, "Do you want to get well?"
