A man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. 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 5:5-6

This past weekend has been such a blessing to me. Between watching God show off a bit at the Pearl River Co. Spring Tea and Marketplace and spending time with family, it’s been a life-giving couple of days. 

Yesterday, I had the privilege of getting to listen to my daddy preach. He spoke on John 5 where the paralyzed man was healed at the pool of Bethesda and verses 5 and 6 stood out to me. 

For one thing, the answer to the question Jesus asks him seems to be equal parts obvious and uncertain. On one hand, it seems clear from the fact that the man was laying by the pool of Bethesda, which superstition said would heal the first person in the water when it was stirred up, would indicate that he did want to get well. And really, who would prefer being paralyzed to being healed?

But there’s more to it than that. To be healed would mean some serious life changes. For the past 38 years, this man had done nothing but sit by the pool and beg for food or money to sustain himself. Given the amount of time he had been paralyzed, it was likely that he had missed out on the opportunity to apprentice with a tradesman to learn a skill to support himself. So if Jesus healed him, he was going to have a long road ahead of him to find a way to earn a livable wage. 

He was way too old to apprentice himself now, and he would no longer be able to beg for the resources he needed to live. He would have to figure out another way to put food on the table. He’d have to figure out a place to go until he could save up enough to build a house. It wasn’t just as simple as getting up and walking away. I almost wouldn’t blame him if he had told Jesus he would have preferred to stay put.

There is another thing, however, that I find interesting about the question Jesus asks the man. The word translated as “Do you wish” can certainly mean to desire or want something, but it has another meaning as well. It can also mean, “Are you willing”. That’s a whole new way to look at the question, and it highlights something amazing about God.

If we look all the way through the Bible, we will see a whole bunch of things doing exactly what God tells them to do immediately when God tells them to do it. Not too much of a surprise there. We already knew that wind and the waves obeyed His voice. But quite frankly, God never asked light if it wanted to come into existence or wind and rain if it felt like stopping at that moment. 

He is the Almighty, worthy to command the entire universe, but when it comes to us, He is willing to ask. This truth goes back to the idea of free will, which was necessary in order for us to have a loving relationship with God, but the thought just astounds me. There is one thing in the entire universe that can receive a command from God and not follow it—and that’s us.

Just like the man at the pool of Bethesda, I feel like God is often asking us if we want to be and are willing to be healed—healed from past traumas, healed from the fears that hold us back, healed from the sins that separate us from Him. Because the healing will come with its own set of challenges and responsibilities. And just like I believe Jesus would have done with the man at Bethesda, if we say the answer is no, He will respect that choice and leave us where we are.

That is both amazing and a bit terrifying. I don’t want to be the person who gets left sitting by the pool of their sin. I want to be the one who accepts the healing and faces the challenges confidently because of a renewed and deepened relationship with Christ. That’s my prayer for all of us this week—that if God points to a part of our lives and asks, “Do you wish to get well?”, we will say, “Yes.”