What Is Your Excuse?

“Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 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?" 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." Jesus said to him, "Get up, take up your bed, and walk." And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked. Now that day was the Sabbath.” John 5:2-3, 5-9 ESV 

How many times have I made excuses to God as to why I can't do something He has asked me to do? 

How many times have you done the same thing? 

In the verses above, part of John Chapter 5, Jesus encounters a man beside the pool of Bethesda near the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem. The pool was trapezoidal in shape and as huge as a football field. Beneath the pool there were underground springs that bubbled up and the disturbed the surface of the water from time to time. Many people in Jesus time believed that this was caused by an angel and when it happened the pool was given special powers to cure the sick. When the water was disturbed the first person to get in would be healed of whatever sickness ailed them. 

Now imagine if you will, the man that Jesus was speaking to. He had been an invalid for thirty eight years. He was one single person in what had to be hundreds of other sick people and Jesus saw only him. The man had given in to his illness and become a prisoner of his own despair and depression. Do you know anyone like that? They are sick, sure, but they have allowed it to define who they are and define how they will live. 

Jesus asked the man what I would assume was a rhetorical question, "Do you want to be made well?" I mean if Jesus asked me that and I was in the same shape as this guy I can imagine that I would either come back with some sarcastic comment or roll my eyes but to Jesus, He saw a person who was full of excuses and walls that had been nurtured over the last thirty eight years. This man had basically given up and let his illness define who he was. He quit! He told Jesus that he couldn't get in the water because there was no one there to help him. 

Imagine, sitting there in front of Jesus, the healer of all healers, and instead of recognizing that renewing power that was in front of his face, he replied, "It is not my fault that I am this way. My friends have let me down once again." Instead of simply saying yes when Jesus asked him to make a choice, he threw out more excuses why he wasn't healed.

As I am writing these words, I have to ask myself, have those words ever been my words?

What is my excuse? Why can't I do what God has asked me do? 

If you find yourself asking the same questions then stop right now! No excuses anymore! No explanations! Jesus is standing right there to help make you whole again. It may be a different kind of whole than what we expect but our ways aren't necessarily Jesus' ways. All we have to do is take Him up on the offer. It all starts with deciding the next time an excuse starts to come out of your mouth, that you will confess it to God and ask Him for forgiveness. Then commit to living an excuse free life before God and those you love.

"Courage is being scared to death and saddling up anyways." John Wayne