To Wait for the Lord - pt.2
After these things there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew Bethesda, having five porticoes. In these lay a multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, and withered, [waiting for the moving of the waters; for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool and stirred up the water; whoever then first, after the stirring up of the water, stepped in was made well from whatever disease with which he was afflicted.] A man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had already been a long time in that condition, He *said to him, “Do you wish to get well?” The sick man answered Him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I am coming, another steps down before me.” Jesus *said to him, “Get up, pick up your pallet and walk.” Immediately the man became well, and picked up his pallet and began to walk. Now it was the Sabbath on that day.
John 5:1-9
As He passed by, He saw a man blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him. We must work the works of Him who sent Me as long as it is day; night is coming when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world.” When He had said this, He spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and applied the clay to his eyes, and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which is translated, Sent). So he went away and washed, and came back seeing. Therefore the neighbors, and those who previously saw him as a beggar, were saying, “Is not this the one who used to sit and beg?” Others were saying, “This is he,” still others were saying, “No, but he is like him.” He kept saying, “I am the one.” So they were saying to him, “How then were your eyes opened?” He answered, “The man who is called Jesus made clay, and anointed my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash’; so I went away and washed, and I received sight.”
John 9:1-11
And a woman who had a hemorrhage for twelve years, and could not be healed by anyone, came up behind Him and touched the fringe of His cloak, and immediately her hemorrhage stopped. And Jesus said, “Who is the one who touched Me?” And while they were all denying it, Peter said, “Master, the people are crowding and pressing in on You.” But Jesus said, “Someone did touch Me, for I was aware that power had gone out of Me.” When the woman saw that she had not escaped notice, she came trembling and fell down before Him, and declared in the presence of all the people the reason why she had touched Him, and how she had been immediately healed. And He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace.”
Luke 8:43-48
"Why would a loving God want or cause you to suffer?". It's a question I get all the time when I open up to people about the sorrow and pain that my soul has experienced. It's why when I read stories like this I feel a kinsmen connection with these people.
I've spent the last 20+ years with my soul sitting beside a nasty pool in sickness, sorrow, and torment. I've seen people around me be healed by the power of the Lord. I've seen Him stir up the waters in His power, mercy, and love. I've rushed and cried out to be healed by that power, but it always seems to slip through my grasp. Yes, I feel a kinsmen connection with these people, but I also find myself trying to avoid these stories, because their story is my story. Everyone I hear talk about these people focuses on the healing moment, but I see the time before the healing: 38 years, an entire life, 12 years.
I wonder at the torment of these people because it's my torment. Consider the man by the pool. 38 years or older… at that point he's an old man by the cultural standard. I wonder at what his life must have been like. After suffering for 38 years, what was it like to see someone be healed who has been hurting for 6 months, 6 weeks, 6 days? What was it like to be second in the water? To think you made it first and would finally be healed only to see someone barely beat you there? What was it like to cry out to God in hope, only to have those hopes dashed time and time again? What was it like to be so alone that you had no one to help you to the pool? What was it like to see people smiling and laughing and walking by the pool going about their daily lives who had been there with you not weeks before, but now they don't even see you there? What was that loneliness like, that pain, that sorrow?
The sickness of that man's body is the anguish of my soul. I avoid these stories because they're my story. How many times do you think the woman who suffered from bleeding went to try something new with a glimmer of hope to be healed, only to come home defeated? I read these stories the way the man by the pool likely saw people healed and walk away restored. With a flicker of hope and a lot of aching.
Do I believe the Lord can heal? Absolutely. Do I think He has the power? Yes. Do I think He loves me? Yes. Do I believe that God is who He says He is? That He's loving and faithful and good? I'm literally betting the eternity of my soul on it. Do I think the Spirit is in me and that Jesus has washed my sin away and cleansed me? Yes.
And yet my soul still sits by the pool, knowing my eternity has been healed, knowing that eternity should start today, yesterday, and the day before. Knowing that freedom should come, has already come, and yet here I still sit, aching to my core in confusion and weeping to the Lord at why He still has me sitting by the pool. Like He's saying "You're mine, but I'm not going to lift you from beside the pool yet. I want you to stay. Stay in your blindness. Stay bleeding. The time for My power and glory to be shown in your restoration has not yet come".
And yet, as I look around the pool at this world, I see a lot of others still sitting here with me. Some who know Christ and some who don't. Some who know the Shepherd and some who are still waiting to be found. All of us crying out and weeping to see our day of healing come quickly.
Many haven't been in their anguish 20+ years, though some have been here longer. So how do we sit by the pool? How do we wait upon the Lord when we believe He can renew and we believe He loves, but His timing is not our timing?
Thankfully, we really only have three directions and expectations from the Lord in the New Testament. Love the Lord our God, love our neighbor as He loves us, and to make disciples. So then the question. It's not necessarily one that I like, but it's one I need to ask anyway. Can I do those three things by the pool? In the midst of fading hope in this life, in the groanings of the soul to either be healed or taken Home, in the struggle that Job faced to not resent the Lord and still believe… in the midst of that, can I still do those three things?
Yes.
And because that answer is yes, the only true choice is to praise the Lord that I'm in a place where I can do the things He's asking me to do. Like the man by the pool, at some point my dreams for my life began to fade. The desires I thought the Lord gave me to pursue start to flicker like a candle at its end. The things I once ached for with my entire being because I thought the Lord wanted me to run after them with all I had… all of those things start to dim and fade, and yet for as large as those dreams and desires were, the gap they leave behind is just as large. The pain and sorrow that remains hurts as much as the passion for the dream it came from. My hope and prayer is that the Lord would fill those holes with content, peace, and joy, but as of yet it seems like He's still telling me to wait on Him. That He'll give me just enough to make it to tomorrow, but only just enough.
And yet, the answer is still yes. Not because I want it to be. Not because it feels like it is. The answer is yes because it's the right answer. I can still live as the Lord directed us to live, even beside the pool, so I need to do so. So then how do I, do we, spend every day beside the pool in faithfulness to the Lord, waiting for the day Jesus passes by to heal us?
The only answer I can come to is in love, worship, praise, and thankfulness. Loving those who come to the pool for healing who are new to this level of pain and agony. To tell them that the power of the Lord is real. That I've seen it with my own eyes, time and time again. That He does heal. That He does love. To sit by the pool and encourage those who still sit with me. To praise and worship my Lord and King so as to live as an example so that if my day ever comes in this life, if I ever am healed, it will further encourage those who remain after me, to increase their faith that the Lord is who He says He is. To sing songs of praise and thankfulness when those who used to sit next to me are now walking and running in freedom and healing, whether they still see me beside the pool or not.
And I have to be okay with the reality that my healing may never come in this life. It did for the man by the pool, it did for the blind man, it did for the woman who was bleeding, but the human story tells us that healing may not always come in this life. How many sat by the pool unable to make it when Jesus didn't walk by? How many were born blind, are still born blind, not because of their sin but because the Lord will somehow use their darkness for His light? How many even today still bleed across our world until their end?
I can't express in words how hard this is. It consumes me. I was recently told by a psychiatrist that there's a good chance I'm OCD. I literally have such an obsessive and compulsive desire to know and follow the will of the Lord so deeply and fully that the cry of my soul's brokenness now has a clinical expression beyond depression and anxiety. I don't know if that's good or not. That the thing I've prayed for my entire life is maybe also chemically responsible for my lack of peace and joy? Another thing to weep and praise for in the midst of brokenness, I suppose. If that doesn't sound possible or make sense, well… same. Honestly, I'm not sure how this all works theologically. I'm still working through that. This is more a culminating devotion of thoughts and prayers on how to pursue the Lord in the midst of sorrow than it is a deep theological breakdown. Hopefully over time the Lord will give me more discernment in this. But no matter what, the Lord's ways are beyond ours and we follow Him regardless, right? Indeed, even our ability to wait on Him is a gift from the Spirit. Our ability to persevere and act in any good way is from Him. As James says, every good and perfect gift is from above. That means even our ability to walk where He has us walk and wait where He has us wait is a gift from Him. Our very strength and desire to look for the Lord to heal us is from Him. As the Psalmist says, The Lord looks to the hearts of men to see who seek God, and left to ourselves not a single one of us does so.
Every thought between thoughts is of things such as these. My mind and soul don't rest because I am the same as the people we read about here. My position by the pool is daily, the eyes of my soul are blind to joy and peace, my heart bleeds before the throne of my King every day… and yet here I lay. Having handed over everything I know how, I wait for His healing with the hope of a man who's tried his entire life to make it to the pool of healing and never succeeded.
And yet, I see His power. I see His love. I've seen Him care for people I love in such mercy, beauty, and faithfulness that my tears of sorrow almost find joy, not for myself, but because of overwhelming thankfulness for how well my God loves those He loves. And I think eventually that will come for me. It makes me so excited for heaven. As a young child I would cry myself to sleep terrified of the idea of eternity and heaven, and yet now I can't help but tear up at the beauty of being His child and what that will look like when His good work in me is completed.
The pain hasn't diminished. The sorrow and agony of my soul before the Lord is still so deep that it just makes me want to curl up in a ball beside that pool and weep until the end, but at the same time, I count myself blessed that the Lord allows me to be in a place to love people on His behalf. I've been told that as thankfulness increases, so does joy. I don't know if that's true. I'm more thankful now than I've ever been, but joy is still largely a mystery to me. Maybe it's that perseverance of thankfulness is made complete in joy. So maybe, maybe by the end of this life I'll know what joy is. And if not, maybe a life of thankfulness in the midst of anguish will make my joy even more complete in eternity. After all, Romans 5 tells us to rejoice in suffering, because in the perseverance of our suffering we'll develop a character that leads to hope. So maybe it's the act of sitting beside this pool and persevering in the waiting that will renew my soul to know hope. That's hard to swallow because I really wish hope happened first in that list, not last. I don't know, but I'm thankful nonetheless. If my God keeps me beside the pool because causing me to live a life of pain and sorrow is where I best know Him, serve Him, and worship Him, then thank the Lord for the blessing of this agony and brokenness.
The cry of my heart is for healing, yes. To pick up my mat and walk, run, and leap in praise for my healing. But the cry of my heart is also now that His power is shown overwhelmingly in my weakness, because I am incredibly weak indeed. I pray with all I am that the little hope I have for this life will come to fruition in this life, and yet there's an equal prayer of thankfulness for all the hope and life that I've seen answered here.
And underneath it all, the Cornerstone, an eternal hope in Christ's healing from the cross and His resurrection. A thankfulness in the Lord that though I may not ever feel free in this life, my eternal freedom is secured. That though in this life I may forever sit in darkness to love those in the darkness and tell them of the light, I know I'll spend eternity in His light. I know that line of reasoning doesn't really make sense. I know the presence of the Spirit alone and the salvation of my soul should mean that I live in the light. But while I can see it and know it, it's not really where I live. I don't know why. I wrestle with the Lord on that every moment of every day. Where I end up is in a weeping mess of deep aching and worship. The same cry from the bottom of my soul for help… is also my hallelujah.
