When Jesus saw him lying there…he asked him, “Do you want to get well?” “Sir,” the man replied, “I have no one to help me…” Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” At once the man was cured, he picked up his mat and walked.

John 5:6-9

As Jesus walked through Jerusalem he made his way to a pool where people with physical ailments sat waiting to get into the churning waters for healing. He picked out a particular man who had been an invalid for years to ask a specific question.

“Do you want to get well?”

Oddly enough, the man did not say, “Yes, please!” He made the excuse of not having anyone to help him. The One True Healer stood right in front of the man asking if he wanted to be whole, but he did not understand.

Jesus took care of the ailing man anyway. As the realization hit him, the Bible says the once lame man picked up his mat immediately and walked just as Jesus had instructed him to do.

I wonder if Jesus would ask the same of me. Maybe I do not have a physical ailment holding me down, but what about those emotional scars from the past. Do I want to get well or would I rather feel sorry for myself and put the blame for my condition on others? Do I sit and wait close enough to almost touch the healing unwilling to reach out and grab it?

Jesus wants to heal me too. He does not want me to squander my present and future by clinging to my past. He wants to heal me so that I too can take up my mat and walk into the unencumbered life He has for me. He provides me with opportunities for just that.

“Do you want to get well?”

“Why, yes, Lord I do!”

Thank you, Lord for healing of the most ultimate kind.

Susan P.