Having faith in God — and in ourselves — can be a continual challenge. Travelling faithfully requires that we flow with life, guided by our inner vision even as we heed activity in the outer world.
No matter what may occur in our lives, faith in God and God’s power and presence within us always leads the way. Though sometimes, we get it backwards. As in the story of the man Jesus meets at the pool of Bethesda {See John 5:1-9}.
At the pool, many ill people — blind, crippled, paralyzed — wait for an Angel of the Lord to stir the water at certain seasons. Those who step into the water are healed. One man, an invalid, has waited by the pool for 38 years (mystically, 38 can represent spiritual discernment).
When Jesus sees the man waiting, he asks: “Do you want to get well?”
At this point, the man doesn’t know who Jesus is. He replies: “Sir, I have no one to help me into pool when the water is stirred. While I’m trying to get in, someone else goes ahead of me.”
Then Jesus says to him: “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” At once, the man is cured; he picks up his mat and walks. Because he hears Jesus tell him that he can!
Sometimes we need to wait for assistance. And sometimes we need to lift ourselves up and move, of our own accord. Even when we’ve been previously blinded by anger, crippled by shame or paralyzed by fear.
Sometimes we wait for someone else to “heal” us, never realizing all the while, that we have the power within us to heal whatever needs healing. For days, weeks, months, even years, some of us have held false beliefs — in our hearts — that we are somehow broken or unworthy. We’ve erroneously believed that a power outside of us would one day come along and change our circumstances, instead of understanding that we have all the inner power we need to rise and walk.
When we choose to pick up ourselves and our “mats,” whatever they may be, we align ourselves with God and allow an Angel of the Lord, sometimes called Holy Spirit, room to move. Without Holy Spirit, we labor, struggle and limit ourselves and others — even though the power and presence of God with us and within us is limitless. Yet, with Holy Spirit — the thing which stirs the water, our inner well of faith — we’re healed in whatever way we need healing most.
The Truth is: We always have the power to discern whether we want to wait by the pool, attempt to get in the water, or pick ourselves up and move in another direction. We always have more strategies than we first imagine. At any moment, we can pick up our mats and walk — as soon as we’re ready to believe that we can.
© 2016 – Rev. Jennifer L. Sacks. All rights reserved.
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