Take Up Your Bed and Walk!

We experience emotions of despair! Those feelings that the situation we face is hopeless and impossible. The realization dawns upon our consciousness bringing with it the certainty that all hope is gone and we have arrived at the “Irr Home.” Everything that lives here is “Irreparable,” “Irremediable,” “Irretrievable, ““Irreclaimable,” “Irrevocable.” With this realization comes a perception of impotence, bringing with it the awareness of powerlessness and weakness. Struggling with the conception of thoughts that leave one paralyzed with fear, feeling very ineffective to face yet another day of the same.

These are the feelings of the real world. Products of a world that is determined to take the best we have to offer and to stomp on it crushing it beyond repair. We have tried our best, and our best is not enough! We have offered all that is sacred and dear to us, only to have it rejected. We have gutted it out until we feel that our guts are literally ripped from our bodies. The world looks at us with a look of contempt and scorn and says, "You made your bed now sleep in it!"

However, I have good news for you! The wonderful, glorious, marvelous and miraculous news of the Gospel and that is, "When the world says you made your bed now sleep in it!” Jesus says, “Take up your bed and walk!"

It is just another day like any other day for the past thirty-eight years. Somehow, he drags himself one more time down by the sheep market to the Pool of Bethesda. He is not even sure why he goes to all of the trouble, knowing that there is no possible way for him to get his self into the pool if the angel were to come today. With this acknowledgment also comes a feeling of despair. There is the realization that his situation is hopeless. Not only is he physically impotent; he is powerless to change his life! Into the midst of this chaotic jumble of embroiled emotions came Jesus!

Jesus came to this place, the Pool of Bethesda, which conveyed ideas of magical cures. Bethesda was a place where sometime during the year an angel would come and trouble the water. Hoping to be healed the infirm tried to be the first into the water. It was a place that was close to the sheep market, and like is the case with the local dairies, I am sure the emanation of the sheep gathered into that one small place would begin to attack the olfactory sense of those who came to the pool. There were also bodies of men and women who were sick with all manner of diseases, impotent people. They were people who were blind, the halt, the crippled, and the withered. It was a painful picture of the chief kind of human suffering and bodily disease. It was a place of hopelessness! It was feeling that must have permeated the air. It must have been like a cauldron of fear percolating out feelings that each situation is irremediable and irrevocable! Coming to the realization there is no hope!

Helpless, powerless, that was the atmosphere of the pool of Bethesda. Individuals grasping at the illusive, fragile dream that they might be the first into the pool the next time the water are troubled. Each person is struggling to hold on to that dream of healing through years of failure. Listening to a constant bombardment of doubt and fear come from those around them that had been at the pool for so many years. Their spirits, once high with hope and promise, have now shrunken in distress as realization dawns on them, their situation is hopeless.

Jesus looks on this impotent man, knowing how hopeless his plight is. He does not even require faith from him. Jesus just asks him, "Wilt thou be made whole?"

This individual might have come to the place in his life where he was doubtful of the blessing of healing because of the resulting responsibilities. Now he is hearing a question he might have heard from others. We hear him as he whines out, with a professional drawl, his oft-told story. He shows his loveless ness, quarrelsome ness, and ugly temper. He gives the melancholy recital of his frequent disappointment with an air of insolvent resignation. You might even sense a gloomy satisfaction with his lot in life. However, Jesus does not rebuke him for his lack of faith. He does not require anything special of him. All he simply says is "Take up your bed and walk."

We are the ones who determine how we are going to relate to God. The Psalmist asked himself the question, “Why am I so discouraged and sad? I have decided to put my hope in God. I have decided to praise Him again! He is my Saviour and my God!” (Ps. 43:5) We do not have to go to a “church” service and wait for God to “zap” us with a lightening bolt from heaven. We should not wait for God to change and solve our problems before we worship Him. We need to put our hope in God and worship because He is God! Hope in His Word! (Ps 119:81) When you feel that you have come to the end, gone as far as you can, you have tried everything there is to try. Your only hope is in His Word.

Many times we say, “I can't see it being any different, I can't perceive it changing, it will always be this way!”

Paul said in Romans 8:24-25 “It is not hope if I can see it!” Hope is waiting with endurance for that which we cannot see!

Jesus stood before the tomb and shouted, "Lazarus, come out!" "I'll resurrect you but you have to come out of the grave." "I'll give you hope, but you have to come out the tomb!" "I'll make a change in your life, but you have to make a change in your residence!"

Blind Bart was in a hopeless place in life, blind, begging, and sitting alone on a dusty road, when Jesus came down that road. Bart calls out to Jesus but others tell him to shut up! His situation seems to be even more hopeless. He cries out even louder, in his despair. Again, they tell him to shut up! Nevertheless, hearing the despairing cry, Jesus stood still! He stopped His world! He called for Bart to come to Him.

That blind man jumped up! However, before running to Jesus, he stopped and took off his coat, which told the world he was a blind man. He left his old life behind. He then ran to Jesus and told Jesus that he wanted his sight

We allow ourselves fall into traps and snares of the enemy as he desires to create a feeling of hopelessness in our lives, it works like this: We plant God’s Word in our hearts the same as we plant seed in the field. However many times we allow the cares of this life to choke, strangle, clog, retard, stifle, throttle, smother, suffocate, asphyxiate and gag the Word of God. It dies like a plant choked by weeds.

The bombardment of our lives by financial problems, many of our own creation and others that are just the circumstances of life, cause us to feel it is hopeless. We need to leave behind the clothes of a beggar and go to the king. Stand on his Word. Stop telling God how big your problems are; start telling your problems how big your God is.

Life brings us problems and heartaches. It delivers broken hearts and bruised lives. It binds us in chains of despair and blinds our eyes to the promises of God. We say I will worship God when He blesses me. I will shout when I feel like it. I need to get up out of my seat, shout and praise God because I want to... I want to because He is God! I need to take up my bed and walk!

I do not have to resolve to live this way; I can take up my bed and walk. It is time I realize the situation is not hopeless, God has walked into the stinking situation that I am dealing with and told me to take up my bed and walk. It is time to change locations.

Therefore, when the world tells me I have made my bed now I have to sleep in it! There is no hope! There is the assurance that Jesus is telling me to take up my bed and walk!

It’s just a thought! God Bless…