Do You Want to Be Made Well? | When Jesus Asks the Question, Part 2
Key Truth | Healing begins when we allow Jesus to move us beyond the stories that have shaped us and trust Him to write what comes next.
Key Scripture | “When Jesus saw him lying there, 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 5:6 NKJV
At first, this almost seems like a strange question.
The man had been dealing with his condition for thirty-eight years. Surely he wanted to be healed. Yet Jesus looked at him and asked, “Do you want to be made well?”
Jesus wasn’t asking because He didn’t know the answer. He was asking because perhaps the man needed to confront it.
I’ve been thinking about how easy it is to want our circumstances to change without asking whether we’re willing to change. We can pray for something different while continuing the same patterns, responses, and habits that have kept us where we are.
What strikes me is the man’s response. He doesn’t simply say yes. He begins explaining why he hasn’t been healed: “I have no man to put me into the pool…”
I understand that response more than I’d like to admit. When a hard question exposes something in me, it’s easy to explain how I got here, what someone else did, or why changing isn’t that simple. Some of those explanations may even be completely true, but Jesus wasn’t asking him how he got there. He was asking whether he wanted to leave.
And maybe that’s where our story can become dangerous.
What happened to you may be part of your story, but who wrote it?
Sometimes other people have held the pen. Their rejection wrote a chapter. Their words wrote another. Failure, disappointment, hurt, insecurity or even our own bad decisions have written things over our lives that we eventually started believing were the whole story.
Paul gives us a beautiful picture in 2 Corinthians 3:3. He says that we are “an epistle of Christ…written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God.”
Our lives were never meant to be authored by our wounds.
Maybe healing begins when we stop allowing what happened to us to determine what gets written next. Perhaps Jesus’ question is an invitation to put the pen back in His hands.
The man at the pool had lived one story for thirty-eight years. Then Jesus walked into it and said, “Rise, take up your bed and walk.”
The miracle came from Jesus, but the man still had to get up.
There are things we can carry so long that they begin to feel normal. We learn how to function around them, explain them and even build our identity around them. Healing can be uncomfortable because it requires believing that what has been doesn’t have to determine what will be.
Maybe that’s the hard question for us today: Do I really want to be made well, or do I simply want God to make my current story more comfortable?
Your story may explain where you’ve been, but it doesn’t get to determine where you’re going. Put the pen back in His hands.
Reflection
Prayer | Jesus, show me where I’ve allowed wounds, people, failures or circumstances to write things over my life that You never wrote. I give You the pen again. Write what You desire through my life and give me the courage to get up when You tell me to walk. Amen.
Go Deeper
John 5:1–9
2 Corinthians 3:2–3
Psalm 139:16
Hebrews 12:2
Ephesians 2:10
The Echo | Jesus doesn’t ask questions because He needs answers. He asks questions because we do.
Key Scripture | “When Jesus saw him lying there, 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 5:6 NKJV
At first, this almost seems like a strange question.
The man had been dealing with his condition for thirty-eight years. Surely he wanted to be healed. Yet Jesus looked at him and asked, “Do you want to be made well?”
Jesus wasn’t asking because He didn’t know the answer. He was asking because perhaps the man needed to confront it.
I’ve been thinking about how easy it is to want our circumstances to change without asking whether we’re willing to change. We can pray for something different while continuing the same patterns, responses, and habits that have kept us where we are.
What strikes me is the man’s response. He doesn’t simply say yes. He begins explaining why he hasn’t been healed: “I have no man to put me into the pool…”
I understand that response more than I’d like to admit. When a hard question exposes something in me, it’s easy to explain how I got here, what someone else did, or why changing isn’t that simple. Some of those explanations may even be completely true, but Jesus wasn’t asking him how he got there. He was asking whether he wanted to leave.
And maybe that’s where our story can become dangerous.
What happened to you may be part of your story, but who wrote it?
Sometimes other people have held the pen. Their rejection wrote a chapter. Their words wrote another. Failure, disappointment, hurt, insecurity or even our own bad decisions have written things over our lives that we eventually started believing were the whole story.
Paul gives us a beautiful picture in 2 Corinthians 3:3. He says that we are “an epistle of Christ…written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God.”
Our lives were never meant to be authored by our wounds.
Maybe healing begins when we stop allowing what happened to us to determine what gets written next. Perhaps Jesus’ question is an invitation to put the pen back in His hands.
The man at the pool had lived one story for thirty-eight years. Then Jesus walked into it and said, “Rise, take up your bed and walk.”
The miracle came from Jesus, but the man still had to get up.
There are things we can carry so long that they begin to feel normal. We learn how to function around them, explain them and even build our identity around them. Healing can be uncomfortable because it requires believing that what has been doesn’t have to determine what will be.
Maybe that’s the hard question for us today: Do I really want to be made well, or do I simply want God to make my current story more comfortable?
Your story may explain where you’ve been, but it doesn’t get to determine where you’re going. Put the pen back in His hands.
Reflection
- Is there an area of my life where I’ve become better at explaining why I am the way I am than allowing Jesus to change me?
- Who has been holding the pen in my story?
- Do I really want to be made well?
Prayer | Jesus, show me where I’ve allowed wounds, people, failures or circumstances to write things over my life that You never wrote. I give You the pen again. Write what You desire through my life and give me the courage to get up when You tell me to walk. Amen.
Go Deeper
John 5:1–9
2 Corinthians 3:2–3
Psalm 139:16
Hebrews 12:2
Ephesians 2:10
The Echo | Jesus doesn’t ask questions because He needs answers. He asks questions because we do.
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