Excuses, Excuses!

Misery doesn't only love company, misery also loves excuses.

This morning I was reading John 5, which is an account of Jesus healing an invalid (*) man. 

*Years ago, when I was on a Bible Quiz Team, we were studying this chapter and one of my teammates had been reading the word "invalid" not as a cripple, but as in, "Invalid response. Abort, retry, fail?"  That poor in-valid man, no wonder he wanted to be healed.  

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 OK, back to the issue at hand.

Jesus asked him a direct question:

"Do you want to get well?"

That's a great question, isn't it?  The answer is kind of rhetorical.  Of course he wants to get well.  If not, he wouldn't be where he is, lying there, waiting for hand-outs, and trying to get into the pool of water (which would occasionally be stirred up by an angel, and whoever got in first got healed--Hey, don't look at me funny, I'm just rephrasing the footnote in verse 4).

But the answer that the man gave Jesus is not what we would have expected. 

"Sir," the invalid replied, "I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred.  While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me." 

He starts in with excuses.  He gives all the reasons for why he is not well.  He's already given in to defeat (it had been 38 years, after all), so he's offering an invitation to his pity party.

I hear refrains of, nobody helps me, everyone else gets to do what they want, and life isn't fair.

Maybe I only hear that because those are the thoughts in my own mind, more frequently than I would like to admit.  Frankly, life isn't fair.  And a lot of days I argue that fact, wanting fairness, wanting my turn to do something I want to, or at least wanting a break.  

I don't know what Jesus saw in the invalid man that day, but I'm glad He took the initiative to get involved.  Jesus didn't ask him any other questions, didn't preach to him, and didn't rebuke him for his train of thought.

If I imagine this scene, the man is still lying there, maybe not even looking at Jesus.  He might be looking at the pool, bitter with disappointment that it has never yet been his turn.  Perhaps he was thinking of all the people who had let him down by not helping him quickly enough, or maybe not even being there at all.  I imagine Jesus nodding, then interrupting his thoughts with a completely new idea.

Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.”  At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.

That was it.  It was as though Jesus had said, Since no one is able to get you into the pool quickly enough, why don't you just jump in there yourself?  And he got up and walked.

So often in my mind I hear a question, like, "Do you want to do something with your days?" and instead of answering, "Yes!  Of course!" I start going on and on about how I can't.  Because there are groceries to be bought and lunches to be made and floors to be vacuumed and laundry to be put away.  Because there are facebook statuses to be commented on and pictures to be uploaded.  Because everyone else goes out and has fun and I have to stay home and hold down the fort.  Because there's a baby on the way and I am certain I will never again accomplish anything except feed, change, and carry.  Because it's been so long since I've had a life and felt like I was contributing to anything beyond the confines of my small and cluttered house. 

And Jesus nods and asks, "Well, why don't you just stand up and start doing something?"

I believe I read this today because I'm at a critical point.  He is asking me, "What do you want to do?" and I don't even have an answer.   I have been thinking that the answer has been, "No, I can't do that," for so long that I have lost the ability to hope beyond just making it to bed at the end of the day.  I have a feeling Paul was addressing this reasoning as well when he spoke "of all men to be pitied." 

The option is there--to believe that what Jesus offers is everything I need to be everything He's called me to be.  I can just believe that He has given me everything I need for life and godliness.  If I will stop with the excuses, and get up and walk, He has a great and miraculous story to unfold.  

I'm linking up with the Soli Deo Gloria girls again today.