“Do you want to be healed? You have not even asked me, your creator, to heal you.” That’s what I heard the Lord whisper to me during worship in a small Nepali church in the middle of the mountains. It’s ironic that this passage seems to come up again in my life, considering I wrote a blog post a couple months ago on it as well.
John 5: 1-9
1 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 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.
This man had been disabled for 38 years. His problem had become a way of life. He grew so comfortable in his way of life, in his bondage, with no hope of ever being healed. His circumstances didn’t look promising, but he also didn’t even consider asking to be healed. In verse 6, Jesus asks “Do you want to get well?” Sometimes we get so comfortable in our own sin or “disability” that we don’t really want to imagine a life without that in it. We have to ask ourselves, do we want to be well? Not just in our physical selves, but also in our spiritual. In verse 7, this man makes excuses of why he is in the circumstance that he is in. A lot of times, we do the same thing: we make excuses of why we are victim to our circumstances, or tend to blame other things. Jesus doesn’t accept these excuses; he only sees the possibilities that are endless with him. In this case, Jesus called out this man’s spiritual disability before his physical one.
I was in this situation just a couple days ago. As I sat in the small Nepali church, the Lord said, “why don’t you trust me to heal you? Why have you not even asked? What is it that hinders you from coming to me first?” BOOM. My spiritual disability was called out that day. Now is when the miraculous thing happens.
The day before I left for launch, I sprained my ankle pretty bad (in the dumbest way possible: I was at work, swinging on a swing that was too short for me when my foot caught the ground on the way down and I flew forward, over-extending my whole ankle which left me crippled). I thought, great, this is just what I need the day before I leave to go across the world for 11 months! My ankle swelled up to the size of a baseball where it stayed for over a month and a half up until 2 days ago. Over the past month in India, my ankle had continued to give me a lot of pain, but I continued to just push through it because I didn’t think any differently. At debrief at the beginning of this month, I sprained my OTHER ankle on the side of a curb, which left it extremely hard to walk with both ankles out of commission. (I think now that this was the Lord’s way of getting me to WAKE UP and come to Him for healing). As I sit in that church, cross legged (it is culturally inappropriate to sit with your legs out in front of you on the floor), my ankles were both in a lot of pain. That’s when I heard the Lord and thought, I need to ask my team to come pray over my ankles. I need to ask for healing. Why had I not even thought about that before this moment? The Lord uncovered my eyes to see that sometimes he needs to call out the spiritual disability before my physical one.
I went to my teammate Paige and said “I want you guys to pray over my ankles”. We sat on the church floor, my swollen ankles out in front of me, my heart still doubtful. Betsy said, “We should ask Papa to come pray over them too!” Papa is the pastor of the church we are with this month, also our host father. This man is so full of the spirit, and we have learned so much wisdom from him in these past couple days. Even though we have a language barrier, we are connected in the spirit and in love. Papa has also been given the spiritual gift of healing. He came over in urgency and asked how long my ankles had been swollen/in pain. Paige touched my ankles, commenting on how swollen and tender they felt right before we prayed. We closed our eyes, my teammates and Papa’s hands on my ankles, and began to pray. I was still so doubtful in this moment, “why would the Lord want to heal me? What’s even going to be different after we open our eyes again? I don’t think this is going to work.” My doubt continued to overwhelm me but there was the small glimpse of hope, knowing my Father is a good Father. When we opened our eyes, Papa removed his hand.
“Oh my goodness!!! Look at it! It’s so small!” One of my teammates exclaimed.
“The swelling is completely gone! It literally just decreased in front of our eyes!”
“Was it always that small?!”
“How did that just happen?”
We all touched my ankle, laughing and praising God over the fact that the swelling and pain were COMPLETELY gone. We were all in shock. I stood up, moved it around, danced on it, continued to touch it, knowing that a miracle had just occurred. We have a good, good Father my friends. The Lord healed me in my doubt, using my host Papa as a part of that, to display how He as our heavenly Father wants to heal us in the same urgency and passion. Praise the Lord. The Lord is alive, working, healing, and loving us more than ever. Thank you Jesus for allowing me to see the way your spirit is active not only through others, but personally as well.
Do you want to get well? Do you want to be healed today? Trust that the Lord wants to heal you, even if it’s not immediate.
He is a loving Father.
You are his beloved Sons and Daughters.
You belong to the King.
You are chosen.
You are loved.
YOU ARE HEALED.
