Do You Want to Get Well?

I was reading from the Gospel according to John this morning when I came across Jesus' question to the invalid at the pool, "Do you want to get well?"

Jesus knew the invalid's situation. He knew that he's been an invalid for 38 years. Yet He did not healed him at once. He did not impose. He asked him if he want to get well. What a compassionate and unimposing Lord we have. We always have a choice with Him.

Like the invalid, I, too, want to get well. I prayed to Jesus. Yes, Lord, I want to get well. Get well from pain, from sickness, from anxiety, from doubt, from unbelief....from sins. I want to get well to give You thanks. I want to get well to praise and live for You. I want to get well to give You glory.

The Healing at the Pool

¹Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. ²Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda^a]">[a] and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. ³Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed.^b]">[b] ⁵One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. ⁶When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, "Do you want to get well?"

⁷"Sir," the invalid replied, "I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me."

⁸Then Jesus said to him, "Get up! Pick up your mat and walk." ⁹At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.
The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, ¹⁰and so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, "It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat."

¹¹But he replied, "The man who made me well said to me, 'Pick up your mat and walk.' "

¹²So they asked him, "Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?"

¹³The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.

¹⁴Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, "See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you." ¹⁵The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.

- John 5: 1-15 (NIV)