What God Never Assumes About You

Photo: Flickr User Tripu, Creative Common, cc

 Pool waters sparkle against grey stone. Always the gentleman, he stoops low to ask.

“Do you want to get well?” 

That was the question. And in fact, it really was the issue wasn’t it? Because for as much as we gripe and complain about whatever is broken in our day, in our situation, in us, or in a relationship…


…that is always the question. “Do you want to get well?”

Pool waters sparkled against grey stone, as Jesus approached the man with the atrophied legs. He never assumes, this godhead. Because the man hadn’t asked Jesus for healing, didn’t even seem to know who was standing there before him.

All the man saw were the hurdles — those obstacles blocking him from healing, from wholeness, from a different life –keeping him back.

Always the gentleman, Jesus stooped low and asked, “Do you want to get well?”

“Sir,” said the invalid, “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.” 


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. 

“Do you want to get well, Jen? …Of your bad attitudes, your tension and concerns? Do you want to get well, Jen, from this thing here?”

Yes, please. Yes, thank you.

“Do you want to get well?”

Then do the actions that show that. Stop, get up, walk in that way.

At once the man was cured.

This God who slippped politely up to the man at the pool of Bethesda is the same God who asks us. “Do you want to get well?”

At our response, he will reach in, take our faltering, paralyzed situations, and make them well. He is the God who can grow atrophied muscles, hearts, and relationships. He is the God who transforms brokenness into wholeness. 

“Do you want to get well?”