A man laid by a pool of water, lame. Invalid. Useless. This man had been this way for thirty-eight years. The pool he laid beside was a breeding ground for the lame, blind, and paralyzed. They came from all over in the hopes of making into the stirred water so they would be healed.
A man enters the scene, one unlike any man they had ever encountered. This man, Jesus, asks the man “Do you want to get well?”
“Do I want to? Of course I want to get well. You think I like being like this? This is life for me. No one ever helps me. I have no one to help me. I can’t get in the water. I have no hope. It is pointless. I try, and I try, but I can’t. I can’t,” the man exclaims with a heart-breaking shake in his voice.
“Get up! Pick up your mat and walk son.”
He picked up his mat, and walked.
Man. How I know the feeling. I may not be physically lame, but spiritually lame I am. Every week I see so many people, like myself, come to church (the pool) in the hopes that our good works of prayer, worship, and bible study will help us earn the love of the Father.
If I keep working at it, He will love me. If I just keep singing and raising my hands, He has to love me. I’ll impress Him. Right?
Like this poor invalid man, how I often have I said “I keep trying, but it’s pointless” as I unknowingly stare into the eyes of Grace and Love.
I am at a weird place. I am tired. I am tired of not feeling like I love Jesus in the innocent way I did three years ago when I met Him. Now our relationship is clogged with empty good works and spiritual orphanhood. I lost the meaning of it all, Jesus. The healings and miracles become monotonous. Prayer and bible study became, well, like work or a job. Worship more like a staged performance. I felt like I lost my first love.
But my beautiful Jesus is relentless in His love for me. Like Zacchaeus, I am stunned how He calls me by name down of the tree of my good works and false idols.
There has been a change in the last month or so. In a weird change, all I want is Jesus. Raw and untainted Jesus.
Being a spiritual “worker” had me burnt out and just plain tired.
So I made a New Year’s Resolution of sorts, Jesus. Simple. Sure, it consists of different sacrifices I want to make that will allow me to focus on the love He has for me, but it is simple. I want Jesus. The beautiful hands that healed me three years ago, not for what He does, but for who He is.
I made a vow, to give my life for this cause. To be a lover, not a worker. Rather than getting burnt out, being a lover will actually energize me. Rather than praying, reading, fasting, loving, or worshipping like I am working for something, I will do them simply out of the love He has for me. I will be a laid-down lover.
So here I sit, underneath the waterfall of grace and love He has for me. Just soaking it in, knowing I don’t deserve it. Content. Joyful. Knowing that my identity lies in those eyes that look at the fullness of who I am, sin and all, and say “Son, I love you still. Get up, and just be with Me.” He doesn’t condemn me, or pick up a stone. He just brings me in close, and embraces me. And that changes me.
I feel alive. I feel like a little kid again, in love. I want to pray, and worship, and dance like a wild man now. I don’t have to, but I want to. He is worth it, and His love draws me in. It allows me to lay down my life.
With the fresh scent of a new season of life, beauty is here. And I plan on soaking it up.
Jesus.
