Excuses

John 5:5-8 ESV
“One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.  When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?”  The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.”  Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.”

Wilma Rudolph was born on June 23, 1940, in Clarksville, Tenn. She was the 20th of 22 children. At the age of 4, she was stricken with double pneumonia, scarlet fever and polio that caused her to lose the use of her left leg. Many doctors felt she would never walk again, yet she always believed otherwise.

By the time she was 12, with much determination, she had regained her ability to walk and even took up athletics, and eventually she started to run. By the age of 16 she was selected for the Olympic relay team and with her team the first year she was awarded a bronze metal. In 1960 she won 3 gold medals 1 in the 100m, 1 in the 200m and the 3rd in a 4×100 relay.

Wilma Rudolph could have taken the words of her doctors, made excuses, accepted defeat, but she allowed God to have the final word. In today’s passage, the man at the pool of Bethesda, had excuses for 38 years, but Jesus had the last word. We can accept defeat, and lack, we can make excuses for the past, for emotional hurts, for pain from an accident or illness or we can take the word of Jesus that says “rise and be healed!”

Prayer:
Lord, never let me settle for status quo, for defeat, for lack. Never let me sit around and make excuses for everything that has happened in life, take me by the hand, raise me up, set my feet aright again, and show me the path to success and blessings.