Do you Want to be Well?

Jesus was once in Jerusalem for a Jewish festival when he passed the pool of Bethesda. This pool was special because at a certain season, an angel would dip into the pool and whoever was first to step in was healed. Jesus noticed a lame man who had been by the pool for 38 years. Jesus then asks him a strange question, “Do you want to get well?” I always wondered about this question. But miracles are used to illustrate spiritual truths. Jesus asks him if he wants to get well because to be well would require a total change in his way of life. He would say goodbye to the way he used to live, waiting by a pool as a cripple, and enter society. It would be wonderful, but it would be hard. The same is true for us. When we say goodbye to our old life of sin, life is very different, sometimes harder. But, just as it was worth it to the lame man, so it is with us. In the same way, Jesus stands before us, asking “Do you want to be well?”