" The pay-off "

I was reading John 5:6 and it really convicted me. Jesus encounters a man who was ill and had been sitting at the pool of Bethesda for 38 years. And honestly this has to be the most insensitive healing text in the Bible, because Jesus asks him the really harsh question: “do you want to be made well?” and the guy doesn't even answer the question, when asked if he wants to be made well he says no one will help me into the water and when I try to get in other people get in the way.
I don’t want to be a jerk, but seriously? That’s the guy’s answer? Not to diminish his illness but it makes me wonder what the pay-off might have been to staying ill since when asked if he wanted to be made well... he didn't seem very interested.
I started thinking about how hard it is to be honest about the pay-off's we get from things we say we want to be free from. You can ask any alcoholic or drug addict in recovery about this. " When I was still drinking and drugging, I’d bemoan my hangovers and the fact I couldn't manage to keep a decent job. But there was a pay-off. I got to live without any real responsibility and do as I like no matter how it effected others and the best pay-off was that I got to be inebriated whenever life or basic human emotions or the results of my bad decisions started feeling too bad." This is the common response in rehab. It’s not just drunks or addicts though. Not by far.
Some of us spend money we don’t have on things we don’t need which boosts our mood until we get the bills which is then so depressing we have to start the whole thing over and shop some more just to boost our mood. All the while we complain about how in debt we are in. It’s like clutching our bills by the side of the pool at Bethesda and having Jesus walk by and say “Do you really want to be free from the bondage of debt”. Jesus is just the worst some times. Being honest about what the pay-off is staying in a situation I say I want out of is just more truthfulness than I feel comfortable with. But that’s the kind of truth Jesus seems to always be putting up in my face when I read texts like this one.

Comments

The Good News said…
Our Lord said to the man with the withered hand, “Stretch out your hand” (Matthew 12:13). As soon as the man did so, his hand was healed. But he had to take the initiative. If we will take the initiative to overcome, we will find that we have the inspiration of God, because He immediately gives us the power of life. -" Life and power comes after we “get up and get going.” God does not give us overcoming life— He gives us life as we overcome. "
February 16, 2019 at 2:22 PM
The Good News said…
...My favor poem is by Robert Frost..." The Road Less Taken "...it puts every decision I have to make into prospective. When I always read this poem...I always envision were I would be a year later...some of us won't think that far. These decisions in life are so profound.. we are free to choose, but we do not really know beforehand what we are choosing between. Our route is, thus, determined by an accretion of choice and chance, and it is impossible to separate the two. The poem doesn't even help us out, it digs so deep into our sub-consequence.. the poem seems more concerned with the question of how . What is so amazing about this poem..is that it mess with us... the nature of the decision is such that there is no Right Path—just the chosen path and the other path. Over the many years I have read this poem, there could be only one conclusion I could walk away with... “seize the day.” :)
March 23, 2019 at 1:31 PM
The Good News said…
Don't you find it strange..when we find yourself in a pit of despair, we remember every hurt and pain we ever experience. The man laid up on his mat for 38 years.-John 5:5 Once he meet Jesus, he picked up his mat of despair, he rolled up all that hurt and pain and walked.out.
April 12, 2019 at 2:28 PM
The Good News said…
Hope is hard...the Lord asked me to place myself in John 5:6 and it really convicted me. Jesus encounters a man who was ill and had been sitting at the pool of Bethesda for 38 years. Having to suffer with MS for over 10 years, I see myself getting progressively worst as time goes by. With MS, we have a chart of progression with 10 being death by MS.... I'm at 8.5. This man had to sustain his hope for 38 years, each time coming to the pool to be healed. What decays Hope more is the people surrounding him, can you image year after year people at the pool, yet along his family and friends, telling him to forget about it, the facial expressions as they see him coming with his crusty old mat he had all his life. The disable man, complains that no friends would help him in: “I have no man, no friend to do me that kindness.” One would think that some of those who had been themselves healed should have lent him a hand; but it is common for the poor to be destitute of friends. John 5:7. The revelation the Lord gave to me is when He said: Rise, take up thy bed, John 5:8. that bed represented 38 years of Hope that wouldn't allow him to give up..but now it was time to pick it up and not fall back on what has already been done in Jesus Name. Amen!
April 29, 2019 at 12:49 PM
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