DO You??

DO You??

Do you want to get past that habit?

Do you want to get healthy?

Do you want to lose weight?

Do you want to get past the hurt?

Do you want to be free?

Do you want to  have peace?

Do you want to experience positive change?

Do you want to your marriage/family/home/job/relationships/life to be different, to be healthy?

Most normal, well adjusted individuals would answer "Well of course, what a dumb question!" to that question at first glance.

I knew a man once who was incredibly healthy, at least physically, who seemed to be a 'job hopper'.  He had had a half dozen jobs in the 4 or so years I had known him.  The last job I knew he had was for the natural gas company.  With each job, he complained about how difficult the job was.  Of course, 'difficult' is a relative term.  What is tough for one person may not be for another.  Along with his complaints was a fairly regular workers compensation claim for some alleged injury. The problem was that the medical professionals could not find the injuries.  Soon he was walking with a cane, and then soon he was manifesting a twitch.  His head would randomly jerk to one side.  He claimed that he had developed neurological injuries from jumping fences to read gas meters.  He asked me once if I thought he looked bad.  I told him if he didn't have neurologic damage from the meter reading, he'd have one from jerking his head like that all day!  I think the only problem he had was an allergy.  He was allergic to work and wanted to be on disability in a major way!  The other twitch he had was constantly watching for investigators with video cameras surveilling him concerning his disability claims.  It seems like a j.o.b. would be much easier.  This guy didn't want to be healed, he was healthy (at least physically; mental health is questionable) and wanted to be sick!

Jesus met a man one day who was sick. He was legitimately sick.  He couldn't walk.  He hadn't been able to move without help for almost 4 decades. The record is in the bible, in the gospel of John, chapter 5.  The explanation for his inability to walk isn't explained, probably because the reason for it isn't really as important as what he was dealing with.  When you get to verse 6 you'll see it.  You'll see the question...THE question.  The mother of all questions.  "Do you want to get well?"  Some would look at the question and say, "What a goofy question!  Of course he wants to be well. That's why he's at that pool with all of the other people who believed that getting into the water when it started moving would heal them."  That particular interpretation of the question seems too simple and obvious.  I believe the best interpretation of the question is, "Do you REALLY want to get well?"  To me, the way the man answers Jesus indicates he understood the question clearly.  He didn't answer the question. Instead he made an excuse.  Jesus seemed to indicate that before the man would ever find wellness, he had to want it.  REALLY want it.

What a penetrating question!  Do you really want to be well?  It seems that the genuine and  intense desire to change his situation had to be in place first, before there was any hope of him moving forward.  It sounds like Jesus knew something that the man didn't even know himself, and Jesus wanted him to take a deep dive inside of himself and actually answer that question.  Do you really want to be well or did you give up hope long ago?  Do you really want to be well or have you come to identify yourself as "that disabled guy"?  Do you really want to be well or has anger over your situation kept you from seeing clearly the path forward?  Do you really want to be well or is the idea of being well frightening to you because you're so accustomed to being in this circumstance that you are that it somehow seems safe, secure...known?

You have to know at this point where I'm headed headed:  I have smart friends.  What about you?  Do YOU want to be well?  Do you REALLY want to be well?  Take that list of questions above and take some time to look deeply into your soul and honestly answer that question.  If you immediately say yes, I'm doubting you really looked and reflected.  The reality is that some people don't want to be well.  There are sometimes things that hinder our desire to be well.

We've seen it before in other contexts.  You've heard of the prisoner who has been incarcerated for several years and is now scheduled to be released.  From the outside looking in, you would expect to see a man who has paid his debt to society, has done the time, and is now at long last going to be able to be free of that tiny prison cell, the confines of the concrete and steel building surrounded by razor wire now anticipating release.  You'd think every single person in that circumstance would be ecstatic about his pending freedom.  Instead, he is petrified of the thought and he commits a crime in prison serious enough that he remains confined.  He's become so accustomed to his incarceration that it feels safer than the unknown and uncertain.  However unpleasant they have been there have been meals, a bed, laundry, a job, routine, acquaintances, medical care.  Freedom is frightening. So he chooses imprisonment over freedom.

Go back to the initial list above.  Are you scared of being healed?  Are you frightened of positive change?  Maybe crazy now feels normal to you.  Maybe you don't feel like you deserve to be free.  Maybe you feel more accustomed to and secure in the familiar confines of the pain or dysfunction rather than in the ultimate freedom of wholeness.

Some use their problems as leverage for attention, sympathy, etc.  What personal benefit are you getting from holding on to your problem instead of seeking wholeness?  Careful, many of these are unconscious and habitual so it takes very deep introspection to notice and drag those hidden things into our conscious mind to wrestle with in the daylight.  Sometimes it's ugly.  For me,  a journal helps, prayer, or reading scripture.  Talking to a trusted same sex friend, a trained professional, or a counselor may help as well.  Whatever method you use, I believe that deep dive is critical.

Instead of deeply desiring recovery, some seem to want to be perpetually angry over their hurts, problems, or their past. 

I was adopted at birth and have done a lot of work to come to grips with it.  Much of what I've been talking about here has been a part of healing from some pretty bad issues,  many of them unconscious like those I've already mentioned.  One of the things I did in that process was join to join a Facebook adoptees support group.  I believe I'm supposed to write a book to help adoptees like myself so I'm using that group for some research.  The issue of rejection or having been rejected at birth is at the core of most of the problems that adoptees experience. One thing I've noticed about many, many people in this group is the pain of that huge past rejection has caused them to live in anger.  I'm not talking about pitching a temporary tent in angerville, I'm talking a permanent structure where they live in their anger.  It didn't take me too long to realize that many didn't want to get past their past, they were being kept from it because of the narcotic effect of their hostility.  Yes, anger can make you feel better, at least for a moment.  It can also make you bitter over the long haul.  Beside the fact that anger typically hurts others, angry venting also hurts you because it's keeping your from wellness.  It's keeping you from your healing.  

Another hindrance to desiring recovery is when we develop a victim mentality.  Are we sometimes victims?  Of course! Bad things happen to good people on the regular.  Is the label 'victim' a description of what happened TO you or have you sculpted a statue of yourself and named it "Victim" to permanently memorialize who/what you say you ARE, or what you want others to say you are? Perpetual victimhood will hinder our healing. I'm not at all supportive of those who have decided to tear down statues of historical figures which now seems fashionable in the USA, but I am 100% supportive of tearing down the statues that continue to imprison people in their past.  In Luke 4, one vital thing Jesus describes that He came to accomplish was 'to proclaim release to the captives'.  And that is what He continues to do.  The problem is, Jesus can break the handcuffs and open the doors to the prison, but he doesn't force us to walk out. 

Additionally, continuously complaining about our problems can also significantly drain the energy required to be able to see the solution to our problems and to ultimately find healing.  Griping may offer temporary personal solace (and sometimes we all have those private pity party moments - keyword 'moment'), but it doesn't move us forward and dig us out of the hole.

You say you really want change.  Do you?  What are you doing about it?  Sometimes the reality is not that we can't be healed but that we won't be healed.  Remember, Jesus did the healing of this crippled man.  However, he wanted the man to WANT it first.  Then Jesus had the man do something else.  "Get up! Pick up your mat and walk!"  There's a whole page to be written on that statement.  The point here is he had the man participate in the healing.  

Are you willing to do whatever it takes to be well?  Remember Naaman in 2 Kings 5?  If not take a minute and read the fascinating account.  The prophet told him he'd be healed from a nasty skin disease which would ruin his good life if he washed 7 times in the river.  Naaman thought the instructions were ridiculous,  but wasn't healed until he did exactly what the man of God told him.  He finally did whatever he needed to do, and he got his life back.

Sometimes healing is a process. Sometimes there is not instant healing, especially with physical illness.  I think physical healing is not a simple deal, instead it's a very complex spiritual issue.  i think there are much bigger things happening in illness at times.  But what I do know is that if you ever want any hope of  physical or any other type of healing,  I think Jesus is teaching here that we have to want it first.  You'll never get wellness and change until you genuinely and continuously want it. Not even Jesus can help someone who doesn't really want to be helped.  FG