Do You Actually Want Things to Be Different?
I’m convinced that many people would rather stay in the pain they know than risk changing the way things are in their lives. Chances are you know someone like this: constant complaint, but never any meaningful change.
I love how Jesus cuts to the heart of the matter when he sees the crippled beggar laying with the others by the Pool of Bethesday in Jerusalem:
“Do you want to get well?”
In other words, Jesus asks him, “Do you actually want things to be different?”
The man’s answer? An excuse:
Well, I’m stuck here and other folks get to the water first and it’s not my fault and blah blah blah.
How many times have I done the same thing? How many times have you? How many times have you listed a litany of excuses while never taking the responsibility to put yourself in a position to change?
Jesus, as usual, cuts through the crap. [Pardon my French.]
“Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.”
To the man’s credit, he does! His desire to get well meets Jesus’s ability to make him well.
I think that’s how it works: we have to want what God wants for us.
Do you?