Can you imagine being stuck for 38 years? Whether it is fighting to provide for your family; building a loving and lasting marriage; establishing your own business; or, fulfilling God’s call on your life, sitting in one place for 38 years is a very long time. The sick man in St. John 5 did not have to imagine being stuck for 38 years, because he experienced it.
The Bible tells us that there was a certain pool in Bethesda around which sick people gathered. They did this because an angel “troubled the water” of the pool at a certain season and whoever was first to touch the water after the “troubling,” was healed. I can see people with all kinds of sicknesses and diseases just waiting – hoping and then fighting to get in first.
When Jesus approached the Pool of Bethesda on that particular day, he met a man who had been sick for 38 years and had tried every time that the water was troubled to get in first. Unfortunately, there were people who were younger and stronger who always beat him to the punch.
What do you do when for 38 years you try to move on from that “stuck position” and you still remain stuck?
It may not be quite 38 years, but it has been a very long time. You are stuck and you know it. What do you do? You might have already given up. You might have told yourself that it makes no sense to even try again. Why bother? “Everyone else is getting ahead and I just can’t seem to move,” you have said.
Let us go back to the story (St. John 5; 1-9). Verse 7 – In response to Jesus’ question if he wanted to be healed, the man said that he had no one to help (do you feel that way?) and whenever he tried to get to the pool, someone else got in ahead of him. Yes, beaten for 38 years and he was left stuck by the Pool of Bethesda.
The key here is that even though he had been beaten 38 times, the man was still trying! Amen.
Are you still trying? The man had faith that he would get into the water first one day (“The Little Engine That Could”), and so he allowed his faith to keep him trying. In the end it took Jesus, acting on the man’s faith, to bring healing. It always takes Jesus, but we need to give Him something to work with – faith coupled with praise. After 38 years the sick man got up, at the words of Jesus, took up his bed and went away healed and rejoicing.
If faith remains, if there is some praise, Jesus will move on our behalf. He wants us to get up from our “stuck conditions” and move into healing and favor.
Here are some additional words of encouragement:
Praise the Lord
When you’re up against a struggle
That shatters all your dreams,
And your hope has been cruelly crushed
By Satan’s manifesting scheme.
And you feel the urge within you
To submit to earthly fears
Don’t let the faith you’re standing in, seem to disappear.
(Chorus)
Praise the Lord!
He can work with those who praise Him,
Praise the Lord!
For our God inhabits praise,
Praise the Lord!
For the chains that seem to bind you
Serve only to remind you,
For they drop powerless behind you
When you praise him.
Now Satan is a liar
And he wants to make us think,
That we are paupers
When he knows himself
We’re children of the King.
So lift up the mighty shield of faith
For the battle has been won.
We know that Jesus Christ has risen,
So the work’s already done!
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