Curled up on the sofa, I sat in silence as my friend sobbed. We’d been here once before as she tried to unearth personal layers that had held her hostage for too long. When she was in financial debt and depressed, I’d text, talk, feed, and pray with her when she isolated — but now we were paused at a crossroads.

Loneliness darkened her soul. Hope felt hard and her couch felt too comfortable. Complacency lingered. She didn’t want to get up and all my attempts to help halted.

I’ve always been a “pull myself up by the bootstraps” kind of gal, so I was stumped. Life often felt challenging, but I was always willing to put in the work. Give me a wise rule and I’d follow it. Offer me a hard job, I’d do my best. Tell me how to get better, I’d try it. Until years later, when I didn’t want to try anymore either. I was tired, discouraged, and, for the first time, understood my friend’s painful crossroads.

I burrowed at home and isolated. Betrayal stung and going to church hurt, so I withdrew. As an extrovert who was historically busy with others, my friends never guessed because I hid behind the kids’ schedules. That hurt more. Emotional anguish rolled into physical weakness and the longer I stayed hidden, the more alone I felt.

One lonely evening I heard Jesus’s gentle prodding. “Jen, do you want to get well?”

This is the same question Jesus asked the man who had been sick for thirty-eight years. The man who waited, wallowed, and wondered what was next for him — who laid by the pool of Bethesda alongside a host of other sick people who pined for a miraculous healing of their own. The Greek word used here for sick (astheneō) doesn’t focus solely on the physically weak. It extends to any of us who lack strength, feel powerless, or struggle with weakness of faith.

Can you imagine the environment? The desperation and hopelessness as a multitude of those with diseases and disabilities waited? I wonder if despair and discouragement had become part of their identity. If we’re honest, sometimes it’s easier to define ourselves by weakness and wounds instead of the wonder of who God made us to be.

When I first read that passage, I thought Jesus’s question was a bit ridiculous to ask anyone desperate for healing. Rejected by those closest to them and cast out by society, doesn’t everyone in anguish want to get well?

While we’d expect a bold declaration of “Absolutely!” to Jesus’ seemingly simple question, the ailing man didn’t reply with a yes or no. Instead, he answered with an excuse.

One man was there who had been disabled for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and realized he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to get well?”

“Sir,” the disabled man answered, “I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I’m coming, someone goes down ahead of me.”
John 5:5-7 CSB

This interaction not only shows his physical struggle, but his spiritual one as well. The sick man doesn’t recognize the Savior who offers unconditional hope and compassion. Instead, he’s blinded by doubt and lists all the reasons why healing is too difficult:

I am all alone. No one will help me. Someone is always ahead of me – they have it easier.

Right then, I saw myself in his excuses. I’m lonely and invisible. I’ve been betrayed. Why didn’t they pick me? Instead of pursuing spiritual wholeness, my heart posture focused inward. It was all about me. My Savior extended a lifeline, but I didn’t recognize it because bitterness bristled.

It’s normal to feel sad and weary. But we can learn to welcome the tension of heartache and hope by trusting Jesus is Jehovah Rafa — the One who heals. The hardest things do not last forever. When we allow our suffering to create a longing for eternity, hope prevails.

Jesus gently asks each of us, “Do you want to be made whole?” Questions like this simmer in the quiet of our souls, yet we’re given a choice.

“Get up,” Jesus told him, “pick up your mat and walk.”
John 5:8 

Christ wants to heal and set us free, but it requires action. Hope and healing don’t come amidst indifference.

With newfound compassion, I sat again with my friend and asked the uncomfortable question of Jesus.

“Do you want to get well?”

“Of course I do, but…” She listed her excuses, but this time I was able to listen and acknowledge how painfully hard healing and transformation can be. I learned you can’t pull yourself up by your bootstraps when they’ve seemingly disappeared, but we know the One who will pull us out of the pit.

It’s a vulnerable question, but do you want to get well? What does it look like for you to live whole?

Lord, soften our hearts. Convict us where we need it and give us a willingness to change. Strengthen us with Your courage so we can pick up our filthy mat filled with past choices, problems, hurt, dysfunction, bitterness — whatever it holds  — and run it to You, our Healer. Amen.

Listen to Jen’s devotion below or wherever you stream podcasts.

 

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