Daily Lesson for March 15, 2017

Today's Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 5 verses 5 through 9:

5 One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” 7 The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” 8 Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” 9 And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.

The invalid man was there 38 years, waiting and waiting for someone else to come along and help him.  The pool, if someone else would just help him get into the pool as it stirred up for healing. But no one ever came in time to help him -- not in 38 years.

Then Jesus appeared with a straightforward and searing question, "Do you want to be healed?"  And then a command, "Get up."

Sometimes we just need to be leveled with. Excuses can cripple us -- forever if we let them. And waiting on others will never get us anywhere. "Get up," Jesus says. And then we realize that we don't need anyone else to make the first move; we have within the power and agency self-sufficiency to rise up and walk ourselves. We can't afford to wait on anyone or anything else. No more excuses. No more waiting.

"Get up, take up your bed, and walk."

And do it today.