Do You Want to Be Healed?

There was a man lying beside the pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem. He had been there for thirty-eight years. Thirty-eight years of waiting, hoping, failing to reach the water in time, and settling back into the same spot on the ground. And one day Jesus walked past, looked at this man, and asked him the most important question anyone had ever asked him.

“Do you want to be healed?”

The question sounds almost offensive. Of course he wants to be healed. He has been lying here for thirty-eight years. But Jesus asked it anyway. And I believe He asked it because the answer is not always as obvious as it appears. There are two kinds of people who remain trapped in addiction, and both of them have one thing in common: they are not yet ready to say a full and unconditional yes to that question.

The Denier

The first kind is the person who refuses to admit there is a problem at all. They have believed the lie so long, told it so many times, and rehearsed it so convincingly that the line between the lie and the truth has blurred. “I don’t have a problem with alcohol; I just like to relax.” “I’m not addicted to my phone; I just use it for work.” “I’m not a workaholic; I’m just driven.” “I’m not controlled by anger; I just have high standards.”

These people do not want to be healed because they do not believe they are sick. And until they do, no amount of intervention, therapy, prayer, or love from others will reach them. The first miracle that needs to happen is not deliverance. It is honesty. The willingness to stop pretending, to take an unflinching look at the damage, and to call the thing what it actually is.

The Despairing

The second kind is the person who knows they have a problem but has stopped believing they can be free. They have tried before and failed. They have made promises they could not keep. They have woken up on the other side of relapse so many times that hope itself feels like a cruel joke. They remind me of that man at the pool, lying in the same spot year after year, wanting to change but unable to believe that change is actually possible for someone like them.

This is a lie too, and it may be the most dangerous one. Because it does not deny the problem. It denies the power of God to solve it. It looks at the cross of Jesus Christ and says, quietly, “That is probably enough for most people. But not for me. My chain is the one He cannot break.”

That is a lie. It is a lie whispered by the father of lies to the people he most fears will discover the power that is available to them in Christ.

The Question Jesus Is Asking You Today

Jesus is asking you the same question He asked that man at Bethesda. Not “Can you be healed?” He already knows the answer to that. He is asking “Do you want to be healed?” Because your answer determines everything that comes next.

Wanting to be healed is more than wanting to feel better. It means wanting freedom more than you want the comfort the addiction provides. It means being willing to go through the discomfort of withdrawal, whether that is physical or emotional or social. It means being willing to face whatever pain the addiction has been masking. It means saying, as that man in John 5 ultimately did, “Yes. Whatever it takes. I want to be free.”

Jesus did not heal the man at the pool because he had it all figured out. He healed him because the man was finally, fully willing. And the moment he was, Jesus spoke, and thirty-eight years of bondage ended in a sentence. You may be helpless in your addiction. But you are not hopeless. There is a difference, and that difference is Jesus.