John 5:7

“What?  Are you talking to me?” the disabled man replies. “Mister, if I could get myself into the water I would do it on cue in a split second!  But I can’t, and there is no one around here willing or able to help pull me and throw me into the pool when the angel stirs the water.  In spite of my best efforts to get in, someone inevitably gets there before I do.”  John 5:7 EFP

Isn’t that just like us?  Instead of saying, “Yes, of course I want to be healed!” we focus on all the reasons we can’t or we don’t or we won’t or we haven’t gotten better.  It is easy to identify the reasons we fester in our wretched condition.  We merely have to look around and see the evidence.

But Jesus is asking me, “Do you want to feel whole? Fulfilled? At peace? Complete?  Well?” He already knows the whys and hows of my present state.  He wants to know if I’m tired enough to consider an option I haven’t considered in the past.  I certainly can’t make myself better.  I tried.  I don’t heal. I can’t forget.  I don’t recover.  The reminders of my failure and my pain are all around me.  But the Healer does not waiver from his one question to me that thinly veils his ultimate desire, “Are you ready to get better?”