Devotional Thought of the Day:

50 “Go,” Jesus told him, “your son will live.” The man believed what i Jesus said to him and departed.
51 While he was still going down, his •slaves met him saying that his boy was alive. 52 He asked them at what time he got better. “Yesterday at seven in the morning j the fever left him,” they answered. 53 The father k realized this was the very hour at which Jesus had told him, “Your son will live.” Then he himself believed, along with his whole household.  John 4:50-53 HCSB

5 One man was there who had been sick for 38 years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and knew he had already been there a long time, He said to him, “Do you want to get well?”
7 “Sir,”  the sick man answered, “I don’t have a man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I’m coming, someone goes down ahead of me.”
8 “Get up,” Jesus told him, “pick up your mat and walk!” 9 Instantly the man got well, picked up his mat, and started to walk.
Now that day was the Sabbath, 10 so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “This is the Sabbath! It’s illegal for you to pick up your mat.”
11 He replied, “The man who made me well told me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ”
12 “Who is this man who told you, ‘Pick up your mat and walk’?” they asked. 13 But the man who was cured did not know who it was, because Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there. ”  John 5:5-6 HCSB

For when a person no longer rises above himself in his search for God, he becomes changed—narrower, smaller. Essential organs become atrophied in him. His soul becomes coarser and less discriminating. Eventually he can no longer love the other or even himself.

My devotional blog usually comes from trying to see the place where my readings converge, To take three or four of them and see what one thought will impact my day, and sometimes my week.

As I look at the two stories from the gospel, something struck me as odd.  

In verse 12 of the second story, we see that the lame man didn’t know who it was that healed him. In the last verse of the first story, we see the statement, “Then he himself believed”  Which means he believed in the man believed in what Jesus said, but he didn’t believe in Jesus. 

Wait, these two guys had miracles done for them, and they weren’t followers of Jesus?  They didn’t believe in Him as Messiah, as their Savior?

This observation may amaze you, but it is just as likely that it will tick you off.  Come on, be honest, why is it fair that this rich leader gets this son healed?  ANd why does the wretch who didn’t stay around to find out who healed him get the healing?

There are so many good believers, both then and now, who, dare I say it, deserve to be healed?  Okay, they are sinners too, but they need to be healed.   This doesn’t seem all that fair to me.  If God’s going to bless folk, shouldn’t there be a logic, a sense of justice about the healings?

Now let’s move onto the Pope’s description of a man who no longer searches for God. Who has become smaller, narrower, more self-centered?  ( GK Chesterton has a lot to say about this kind of man)   Here is a man who soul becomes coarse and dark, brittle and stiff.  The man whose life is so irritable and fractured.  WHo is consumed by anxiety and stress?

Is there hope for such a man?

I’m asking for a friend.

No, I am not.  To be honest, I am asking for myself.

For life has become so overwhelming for those around me, I am so looking for the answers for their problems, that like the man looking for his son to be healed, I forget to believe in the Lord whose words I believed about healing someone I loved.  And often I am like the lame guy lying by the pool, hoping for a miracle, but unable to help myself.  Unable to think outside my box. (heck I didn’t even know I had one!)

The situation Pope Benedict describes I know all too well, and when I am there, when I forget or resist being drawn into God’s presence, time sucks, Life is stressful and anxiety.

Yes, even pastors go through this and go through it far too often.

Which is why I find such an amazing God who is revealed this morning, providing healing that is needed, that is prayed for, even when we don’t recognize Him at first.  He provides what is needed, even when we aren’t sure.  He is patient enough that we have the time to process it, to have the “aha” moment of realizing we were (and still are) in the presence of a loving caring God, who is at work in our lives. 

Knowing this is the God who loves us, knowing this is the God who watches out for us, who cares about us, not just from duty. but because He loves us, is amazing.  It is wonderful, it helps me know during those days when I struggle to rise above myself, when I know I am changing, God will come, and have mercy, and reveal Himself to me.

And to you.

God is with us!  And He is patent, reminding us of His love…  AMEN!

Do you always recognize God’s presence in your life?  If you don’t, how do you feel?  What do you do?  DO you ever want to just give up?

Ratzinger, Joseph. Co-Workers of the Truth: Meditations for Every Day of the Year. Ed. Irene Grassl. Trans. Mary Frances McCarthy and Lothar Krauth. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1992. Print.