In preparation for our first Bible study on faith, hope, and love in Living God’s Story of Grace, I discovered a wonderful article by Jared Wilson, an excerpt from his book (which I haven’t read yet, but now want to)… He is talking about the paralytic in John 5:2-9 who waited 38 years by the pool, hoping, believing his day of healing would come. Sure enough it did, but not by the means he expected. Jared says,
“And in the end, it wasn’t the pool he needed. It was Jesus. How often do you or I believe material substitutes will cure what ails us? We hold out hope for a new job, a new home, a new relationship, a new whatever, believing that when we finally accomplish this or that, we will finally be free of our doubts or fears or struggles, rarely embracing that only the grace of God in Jesus is sufficient for our needs.
. . . [How do we emerge] on the far side of our journey seeing our traveled path with redemption-colored glasses?
The one tiny piece of advice I’d offer on how to see your painful journey as an act of God consecrating your life to his will is to work at consecrating each moment in the journey to faith, hope, and love. By faith, I do not mean “believing in yourself.” By hope, I do not mean “hoping for the best.” By love, I do not mean “following your heart” or some such vague nonsense. We, like invalids, are incapable. We, unlike God, do not really know what is best for us. We, unlike Jesus, have hearts that are deceitful above all things.
No, we will endure, we will prevail, we will persevere, we will be redeemed, both during the process and in the culmination of a Christ-centered faith, hope, and love. Day in and day out, we consider our options to endure or despair, and we choose endure, because to despair is no more valid an option for us than getting up and running away is for a paralyzed man. We consider our lot and, in the spirit of Simon Peter, declare, “To whom shall we go?,” because opting for anything other than proximity to Jesus is no option at all.” Read the rest of this great article.
