Healing Choices: Do You Want to be Healed?

"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?’” (John 5:6 NIV).


Long ago and far away I was diagnosed with clinical depression and began the hard work of deep, lasting, Jesus-led recovery.

One day Jesus asked me, “Do you want to be healed?”

I was reading in the Apostle John’s book and he was telling about the time that Jesus stopped by the Sheep Gate in ancient Jerusalem. There was a pool there where people waited for a chance to be healed by one of God’s angels, but, as I read, it seemed like Jesus looked over and into my eyes.

“Do you want to be healed?”

It seemed like such a ridiculous question. Of course, I wanted to be healed! But, then, I knew what he meant. Was I willing to make a healing choice?

Was I willing to do the hard work of facing painful situations, uncovering bitterness, and admitting to deep, resentful anger? Was I willing to give up my stubborn excuses that allowed me to stay the same, somehow seeing my sickness as more secure than my health?

Was I willing to give up control, let God be God, and admit that I can’t, but he can; or would I rather insist that I can, even though I can’t, holding myself in a cycle of helplessness and hopelessness?

By the pool at the Sheep Gate, Jesus asked an invalid of thirty-eight years: “Do you want to be healed?” His question swept through the man, swept through 2,000 years, and swept into the shadows of my soul.

“Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me . . . ” (John 5:7 NIV).

But there stood the Great Healer holding out help, acutely aware that we can’t, but God can, knowing this to be true because he was on a mission that would provide the only way we can be re-created whole and healthy. Jesus was on the road to Calvary.

The question lingers for you: Do you really want to be healed?

Jon Walker