“Do you want to be healed?”

At first, it seems one of the world’s most foolish questions. What person, paralyzed for 38 years, wouldn’t leap at any chance for healing and renewal?

But Jesus asked it anyway, for grace never overwhelms our choices. Like that long-ago disabled man beside a Jerusalem pool, we each live in the confines of a private prison, often built by foolish choices. Friendships broke under the strain of angry things we said; health was compromised by anesthetics we consumed to hide our physical and emotional pain. Pride kept us distant from the love that would have healed us.

But Jesus still goes walking by the pool, quietly repeating His famous question. “‘Come now, let us reason together,’ says the Lord: ‘though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool” (Isa 1:18).

Grace never demands; never insists; never removes our power to choose. We can, if we wish, remain in our pain.

Or we can accept the healing that grace still offers and rise to “walk in newness of life” (Rom 6:4).

Rise. Walk. And stay in grace. -Bill Knott