Do you REALLY want to be healed?

Last week, I was studying The Healing At The Pool On The Sabbath in John 5. I was reading a commentary on it by David Guzik - he's my favorite so far- and something really struck me. Jesus asks the sick man "Do you want to be healed?". Isn't that such a silly question? I mean, don't we all want to be healed and whole? What person who has an illness doesn't want to be healed???

As I read through the commentary, David Guzik states that "Jesus knew that not every sick person wants to be healed, and that some are so discouraged that they put away all hope. Jesus was dealing with a man who may have had his heart withered as well as his legs."

Upon reading that, I thought, "What?!? Not everyone wants to be healed?!? That's crazy!"

David's commentary goes on by giving the following examples so people like me can understand why Jesus' question was a reasonable one.

• One commentator points out: "An eastern beggar often loses a good living by being cured of his disease." (that makes sense, I've heard that people make good money begging on the street nowadays. ***Please don't let that stop you from giving to people***)
• As bad as our current situation is, at least we are familiar with it. We know it. It won’t surprise us. We can be more comfortable in our present misery than taking the steps we need to be free.
• For example, there are some women who on the one hand desperately want their husbands to be saved - yet on the other hand, they dread the idea because they know it would bring so many changes into their relationship.
• In 1993, it was reported that a small order of Franciscan nuns in Prague decided to subsidize their convent by opening the downstairs of their facility - formerly an underground detention center used by the Communists to imprison and torture their enemies - as a hotel. For $33 a night, you could stay in a former prison cell. The proprietors say they try to achieve a middle ground between comfort and authenticity in the "hotel." Many people are really looking for just that - a comfortable prison cell.

Is that true? Have we grown used to walking around crippled and broken? Do we not want a life without limits? Why do we settle for anything less than the abundant life Christ died to give us?

Last week, I had a stomach bug. It was the horrible kind too, ya know when you are throwing up so hard you feel like you're going to throw up a vital organ. I felt everything! Every pain, every ache. I was crying over the toilet asking God to purge me of whatever this bug was that was causing this sickness. I remember thinking why don't I ever pray that prayer about my sin? Maybe because I don't really feel the repercussions of the sin in my life the same way I felt every release of my stomach. But just because I don't feel sin all the time, doesn't mean it isn't making my soul sick. I think we sometimes become numb to our sin because we've lived with it for so long.
"Jesus knows not everyone wants to be healed!" - that still baffled me until Tuesday when I was sick. In one particular pathetic moment I was having, my mother came up to me and laid hands on me & started praying for a divine healing. I remember thinking to myself during her prayer, It's OK, it's just a bug. It will run it's course and then it'll be done - I don't want to waste God's healing power on this little stomach bug. "I didn't want to WASTE Gods healing power on this little stomach bug?!?!?" What was I thinking? As if God is going to run out of power! In that moment I completely understood why God asked the crippled man in John 5 if he wanted to be healed. I had grown comfortable throwing up every half hour, I had grown comfortable with my sickness.
In that moment when I could've just received healing from Jesus, I doubted & brushed off my illness as if God doesn't care about what I was going through. I was in miracle territory and I didn't take advantage of it.
Have we grown comfortable living a life outside of the abundant life in Christ? Let's talk about it. What are your thoughts?



 

Resource: http://www.blueletterbible.org/commentaries/)