Do you want to be hopeful??
We all have been in a place where we wanted to give up hope. It is the most human thing to come to a point of feeling you have nothing more left in the tank.
How do we stay hopeful? There are so many stories in the Bible where God came through for his people. I am thinking about the man at the pool of Bethesda.
John chapter five tells us his story. Here was a lame man, lying next to the pool where the Angel of God would come and stir the water, and the first person to get into the poll after the stirring, gets healed from whatever disease he had. Can you imagine seeing that? Any sickness healed.
What is amazing about the story is the fact that there were lame, blind and paralyzed people. The obvious question we must ask ourselves is this: If God moved or stirred the water, how did the blind see it stirred? Wasn’t it unfair to them? How did the lame get into the pool first? They stood no chance to be healed because there were other people that had the mobility to get into the pool first. Isn’t that unfair? How do you stay hopeful when you chanced are slim to nothing?
Then Jesus shows up. He asks the lame man a question. “Do you want to be made whole?”
Can you understand why this man answers Jesus and says: “I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred, but before I go someone else steps in before me.” Everyone was there just for themselves. He must have felt hopeless, unseen and unimportant.
When Jesus shows up, things can and will change. This man’s life was about to change. He was there for 38 years. That is a long time to feel hopeless. No matter how long you have been in the place you are now, things can and will change.
Do you want to be made whole? What a question. That question is directed at you as well.
A lot of us have gotten so used to our misery that we are comfortable with it. We decided to feel frustrated. We decided to feel mad. I read a blog last night from a Racer and she is mad at God. Who made her mad? She decided to be mad.
Jesus asks this question because if you don’t want to change, maybe you should stay in your place a little longer until you get to the place where you say: I am tired of this, I am tired of feeling hopeless, there must be something better.
For the person that wants to change there is always hope.
What do you want today? Do you want to stay the same or do you want to change?
Psa. 33:18 Behold, the eye of the LORD is upon them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy;
Psa. 147:11 The LORD taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy.
How will you respond to that question? Allow Jesus to challenge your comfortability with pain and hopelessness. He is the answer.
