I could tell the voice on the other end of the line belonged
to someone who was tender, broken, and fragile.
She was soft spoken, respectful, and incredibly articulate. She shared a bit of her story and my heart
wept for her. She had suffered things
that no person should ever have to go through.
She doubted her self-worth and why she was even born.
After telling her about a program she could go to where she
could receive healing and unconditional love, there was silence. Then she began to ask questions.
o
How will I get food?
o
How do I get there?
o
What if they don’t like me?
o
What about my clothes?
o
How do I know this is for real?
I assured her that all of her needs would be met. We would make sure she had transportation to
get to the safe house and they would give her a safe place to sleep. The safe house would provide all the food,
clothing, and medical she needed all at no cost to her. She would receive counseling, life skills,
and job training. She wrestled with the
idea of what was being offered. She wanted to believe, but it was hard for her
to imagine that there might be hope. At the
end of her questions, she began sobbing and said “I know I should go, but it
sounds too good to be true. Why would someone who doesn’t even know me want to
help me?”
The answer to her question is simple. Because that’s what Jesus would do. Jesus went to the broken, the unloved, and the
outcast. He performed miracles because he
wanted them to be healed physically, but ultimately to be healed spiritually.
In many ways, my conversation with this young woman reminded
me of the lame man in John 5 who was lying near the pools of Bethesda. This man was helpless and hopeless. After 38 years of his condition, he had given
up hope that he could ever get into the healing waters of the pool.
When Jesus learned of the man’s condition, he asked simply him,
“Do you want to get well?” Jesus didn’t
ask because he wanted to know the answer – he already knows the answer. He asked so that the man would search his own
heart. Did he really want to be healed and accept all that came with it?
Rather than responding with “Yes, I want to get well,” he
offered excuses as to why he couldn’t get well.
“I have no one to help me in.
Everyone overlooks my need and moves on without helping me.“ Perhaps this man had been in his condition so
long that it was what was comfortable and familiar to him. He now defined
himself by his disability and saw no hope that change was possible. Perhaps he feared change because he knew
change was hard. Perhaps he knew that a
new way of life would be unknown and unfamiliar and had decided that staying
stuck in the same old rut was easier than learning to walk a new path.
But Jesus doesn’t want us to stay stuck. He desires for us to break free of all that ails
us, holds us back, or chains us to sin.
He tells the man to Get Up! Don’t stay stuck in your despair. Pick
up your mat! Pick up everything that has kept you in this
position or situation. Walk!
Walk free from your past and walk into a new life with Christ.
We reach out to women who are in The Life because we don’t
want them to remain hopeless, helpless, and confined to their mat. We know that if they are willing to
surrender, take a step into the unfamiliar and the uncomfortable, that God
desires to them to walk into who he created them to be.
After Jesus had healed the man, he found him and told him to
stop sinning. Now that the man was
physically healed he wanted him to be spiritually healed. To be spiritually well, the man needed to
know who Jesus was and all that he offered.
He wanted the man to be whole.
Our desire for the women we reach out to is the same. We desire for them to leave their mat and be
healed, but we ultimately want to point them to Jesus and the healing, peace,
and abundant life that only He can offer.
Where is Jesus asking if you want to be well? Trust that God can help you step off your mat
and into his grace.
John 5: 1-15: The
Healing at the Pool
Some time later, Jesus
went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. 2 Now
there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called
Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. 3 Here
a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the
paralyzed. [5 One who was there had been an invalid for
thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and
learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do
you want to get well?”
7 “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.”
8 Then
Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” 9 At
once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.
The day on which this
took place was a Sabbath, 10 and so the Jewish leaders said to
the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry
your mat.”
11 But
he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’
”
12 So
they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?”
13 The
man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the
crowd that was there.
14 Later
Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop
sinning or something worse may happen to you.” 15 The man went
away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well.
