Do you want to be made whole?

 He was a cripple lying by the pool of Bethesda, and he had been there for 38 years. Ever so often the waters were stirred miraculously (see future post “You believe in miracles?”) and the first one in got healed. But he was a cripple with no one to help him, so he was never first and he had been there as I say 38 years, 38 long,  long years.  And Jesus seeing him asks “Do you want to be made whole?”

The first time you read these words you want to say “Excuse me Jesus, I don’t mean to be sassy,  but what kind of a question is that when,  the man has been there for 38 years just waiting to be healed?” But the answer is far from obvious. You could imagine the man saying “Will I have to get a job? Will I have to leave here? The only people I have ever known are right here. Where will I go? What will I do?”   Better the devil you know?

There is a recovery saying that rings true with me. It is this: “We will not change, until the pain of not changing becomes greater than the pain of change”. As I look at people who are stuck (and we all get stuck at times) I see that there are many things that keep us there. Fear is a biggie. Sometimes there are advantages that we don't want to give up, the respect the spouse of the alcoholic gets from friends for putting up with him. And then there is denial, denial that we even need it, but at some level we all need it.

And then there is the difficulty of change. In the last post I quoted Paul's words from Romans about doing what we know we should not,  and not doing what we know we should. It only gets harder when you try. We don't even begin to know how entrenched our (often hidden) addictions are until we try to deal with them. Its not enough to just try and get rid of the pain. It just does not work that way. At some level the pain is a message telling us we need to deal with the stuff. But deep down we know if we start, we are opening a can of worms.   There is a cost to recovery, and while it is always worth it, we don't always see that in the beginning. 

Recovery is not for the faint of heart. Perhaps that is why so few are engaged in it, even Christians. In fact there are times I find that I have more in common with non-Christians in recovery, than Christians who are not.  In the introduction to an influential book (Transformation of the inner man by John and Paula Sandford) they say “You may not be where the Church is when you start reading this book, you will certainly not be there when you finish reading it”.

But the Church is supposed to be the place where this works best, and in my opinion in the best Churches it is true. These are Churches (independent of denomination) that believe and teach and practice that one of the functions of the Church is that it is to be a hospital for the sin sick. Jesus emphasizes this when He said, “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance”.

And this is why I am writing my book “Biblical self help and the healing power of God's love”.  There are three interconnected components are work here, self help certainly, Bible help (truth that sets us free), and God's help. We need all three components if we are to move towards wholeness.  More in the coming days.  For the moment, let me ask “How about you, do you want to be made whole?”