The Question of Wholeness

Jesus asked the lame man, "Do you want to be made well?"  (John 5:6).  Instead of answering the question, the sufferer told Jesus why he had continued to be lame.  "Sir, I have no one to put me in the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me."  (John 5:7)  When asked if he wants to be made well, the man responds by saying that he would have already been whole had it not been for people not helping him.  His answer told Jesus that he blamed others for continuing to be an invalid.

 

The blame game is an easy game for us to play in our spiritual journey.  All of us would no doubt be more into praying if we did not have to spend so much time in the marketplace, or with our families, or doing stuff for the church.  The spiritual life is not as easy for us as it is for the monks who live and pray in the monastery.  It is always easy for us to offer such excuses for our own spiritual mediocrity.  We look at others who seem to have it all together in their spiritual lives and as we do we are always thinking that such would not be possible if they had to live in our shoes.

The question Jesus was asking was the question which required the lame man to assume personal responsibility for his own life.  It is what we all must do if we are to come to any degree of wholeness.  As long as someone else has the power to determine how we live, we are never going to be able know anything but our current level of spiritual wholeness.  "Do you and I want to be made well?  Do we want to be spiritually stronger?  Do we want to be whole?"  As was the case in Jerusalem that day long ago, Jesus is always ready to help us.  But, first we have to determine if we want His help, or life as it has always been.