“Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there [by the pool], and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, ‘Do you want to be made well?’” (John 5:5-6 NKJV)
Who wouldn’t want help? Someone afraid of change.
This man was sick for quite a duration. At a point approaching four decades, it was the only life he knew. He may not have liked it, but he learned to survive as a beggar. Times were tough, but on the upside he hadn’t had to learn a trade or put his back into hard work. His home was his mat. His community was the pool, and he was who he was. It’s amazing what people can learn to endure.
And isn’t there a touch of this man in all of us? We accept a lot of things that we know could be better. We say, “Well, that’s just my life,” as if it’s engraved in stone. We decide God must want us to be here, because if he didn’t, he’d make something else happen. In other words, we blame God. And if it’s God’s fault that we are in the situation we are in, then why would we ask Him for help?
After a while we get used to things, and a limited life is less frightening than the thought of change. Resignation is better than disappointment.
-- Kyle Idleman in “The End of Me: Where Real Life in the Upside-Down Ways of Jesus Begins”
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