One of the most interesting stories in the Bible comes from John chapter 5. The story picks up with Jesus in Jerusalem at a pool called Bethsaida. At certain times of the day, the pool would be stirred and disable people would enter the waters in hopes of being healed. We’re told of a man sitting by the pool who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. For longer than I’ve been alive, this man had been unable to do most functions in life. Work, travel, provide for himself, have a family….. all of these things this man was incapable of doing.
So Jesus walks up to the man and asks him, “Do you want to get well?” I find this to be a very profound question. The ontological God of the universe is standing in front of this invalid who basically has no life. The being in which all other beings have their existence is talking to his creation. The God who breathed the stars into existence and wrapped himself in flesh, who knew the hairs on this man’s head and knew every thought he ever had thought, asks what appeared to be a silly question. I think it was a question Jesus knew the answer to long before he was in Jerusalem. I don’t think the question was for the Christ to obtain information, but rather for the invalid’s sake. “Do you want to get well?”
The question means that there was a choice. We forget that sometimes. Some folks chose to be sick. Sometimes people don’t want out of the hole they are in. Giving all you have to love somebody doesn’t mean that that love will be reciprocated. It doesn’t mean that they’ll accept your help. It doesn’t mean that they’ll accept your Christ. For Christians, you don’t do what is right to get a result. You do what is right because it is right. You offer help because you’ve been helped. You love because Christ loves you. You die because the man you follow was nailed to a cross. Regardless of the outcome.
This has been a rough couple of weeks at the farm. We’ve had a few girls run away for no apparent reason. Not out of anger, not out of depression, not for any immediate situational cause. Part of me roots for these girls. For whatever reason, they were not satisfied. Yet, instead of sitting in their discontent, they got up. I admonish their bravery to search for happiness instead of accept whatever else was handed to them. But the bigger part of me is broken. These girls took for granted what had. They looked outside of the fences when they were standing in green grass all along. In a community stricken by poverty and need, these girls traded their security and care for the freedom of the streets. They failed to see the happiness in front of them. So I said goodbye today to a couple of girls that I have loved as my family for the last year and a half. They said goodbye to the family they have known for the last seven years and the woman they call “mama”.
God is in control, and even when we don’t understand it, He is good. He alone is good. So we’ll keep doing what we do down here. We’ll keep feeding, clothing, protecting, and educating little girls in Honduras. More than that, we’ll continue serving them with our lives and dying to personal ambition. We’ll continue to give, continue to strain, continue to sacrifice so as to give these girls the love and attention that all little girls deserve. We’ll continue to love them even though they won’t fully understand it. To God be the glory.
