After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked. Now that day was the Sabbath.

John 5:1-9 (ESV)

This story get me every time. Let’s just recap this story and try to imagine what this would have been like. The man Jesus went to go see had been there for 38 years and had put all of his hope in getting into the water to be healed. Jesus saw him and he knew he had been there for a long time, and then asks the man, “Do you want to be healed?”

I can imagine the man thinking, “Well yeah! That’s why I’m here! Obviously, I want to be healed!” I’ve always thought that was a strange question for Jesus to ask a man who lived by healing waters in simple hopes that he would one day be the first in the pool to be healed. This was his reality for the majority of his life.

Anyways, the man explained his situation to Jesus in hopes that he will stay around and carry him in. He was essentially saying, “Will you carry me into the water?” The man misunderstood what Jesus was offering him. And I can imagine Jesus simply shaking his head, “no” and looking at the man with kind and compassionate eyes.

Jesus doesn’t look at the man and ask him if he wants help getting into the water. He doesn’t come to him and tell him he will carry him into the waters. He doesn’t even ask him if he knows that he is Jesus, the Messiah. Jesus is simply not in the business of helping us get things our way.

That is where I break in the story every time.

All this man wanted was to be put into the water so he could be healed. He did want to be healed but he had a limited understanding of healing, believing the only way he could be healed was through this water.

Yet Jesus said no because he had something better in mind. He knew that the waters would not truly heal this man. Jesus knew true healing would only come through him.

So he kindly spoke to the man. And instead of responding to him with “Well, I will take you to the waters” or “My disciples here will carry you to the waters” he says, “Get up, take your bed, and walk!” Jesus healed this man because He is God!

This man is told to get up, something he has never done, and to take his bed and walk. This is an indication that he is not to return to this life, he is not to return to this place to sleep. He has been healed and everything has changed!

And this is how we should be when we trust in Jesus. Everything should change. We are a new person. We have a new purpose. And we have a new hope. The man didn’t even know Jesus’ name and yet he was healed by him. 

God is kind to not give us everything we want. And he is kind to give us the things we want in ways we don’t expect. This is hard to admit though because I often feel like it is not kind when he withholds things from me or has another plan. I believe that my plans are the best and struggle to trust God in the unknowns. Yet, this simple story reminded me that sometimes God withholds things from us that seem good to us because he has something better in mind. In this story, I see Jesus withholding healing the way the man imagined being healed in order to show this man who he truly was. This was far better for the man and it is far better for us as well.

So today, I encourage you to run to Jesus with all of your trust and hope. He may not give you what you want, or he may give you what you want in another way, but we can trust that he is a good and faithful God through it all. Only in Jesus is true healing found.