Do you want to be well?

It may be up to you

August 21, 2009 (Friday)
When I was a boy, I went to see Blackstone the Magician at the Metropolitan Theater in downtown Houston. I was thrilled at everything he and his associates did on that stage. One thing that I recall was the stacking of automobile tires. A person stood in one spot and the tires were passed over her head and down to the floor, one after the other, until she could no longer be seen within the stacked tires. There were several people and several stacks. When the tires were removed, the people had switched places, right before our very eyes! We were watching every move, and could not understand how the trick was done. But we knew it was a trick. No one tried to convince himself that something supernatural was happening. It was an illusion of some kind.
The miracles of Jesus, on the other hand, were genuine. People were healed. Lepers were cleansed, the blind could see and the crippled could suddenly walk. Praise God, those miracles were real.
There was, however, a strange happening by the pool of Bethesda one day when Jesus asked a man if he wanted to be healed. Strange, I say, because the man had been there every day for years, hoping to be the first in the water after the ripples appeared, because that meant he would be healed. Folks had to wait for the water to be stirred by an unseen angel, and one had to be first in the water afterwards. This man had been there but had never been healed. Jesus asked him, “Do you want to be well?” The question seems unnecessary, because all the suffering people at that pool were there for that very reason. So why did Jesus ask him such a question? Because it was possible he did not really want to be well. He could have actually loved the attention and the charity that his disability brought. He could have been afraid of the responsibilities that a well person has. For whatever reason, he could have wanted to remain afflicted.
We can put ourselves into that position by refusing to turn loose of whatever is holding us back physically, mentally, socially or spiritually. Let’s be willing to abandon toxic thoughts and actions and move on to higher ground with the Lord. Do you want to be well? It may be up to you.