Do You Really Want To Get Well?

Hello beloved child of God, I hope you’re fine by God’s grace.

Have you done your assignments yesterday? If yes, how was it? How did it feel like to talk to God as you would talk to a friend and to just pour out to Him all what you feel?

It was an awesome exercise for me, I was able to be transparent with God with respect to what I felt, even when it wasn’t beautiful to say. I also did some ugly crying , but it was nice anyhow.

Today, we’re in the topic of reluctance to change, that’s why the title is “Do You Really Want to Get Well?”

As you probably already know, being depressed sucks. You lack energy, you can’t be as productive as you would want to be, you just feel drained, and even your friends, family and loved ones feel drained because you’re not getting better.

You may feel some form of pleasure because everyone is paying attention to you, but at the same time you may feel deep pain because you just can’t figure out how to get better.

Look at it this way.

When you had poor grades in a specific subject in school, you gave in your all at home to study it and to get better at it right?

When you’re sick and the doctor prescribes medication to you, you take your drugs just as he told you to because you want to get better right?

When you want to learn a new skill you find time to work on that frequently right?

It’s the same thing with depression. You’ve got to make decisions to work on yourself in order to get better.

You see all the people in The New Testament who got better because Jesus Christ healed them? Most of the time those people decided to take steps towards healing by going to Jesus Christ to heal them. Some of them could have stayed home, some could have accepted the status quo, some could have remained quiet and not cried out to Jesus, but because they really wanted to get well they (or their loved ones) did what had to be done, whatever it had to require from them.

So today, we’re going to look at some thoughts which can make someone not want to do any effort to get better, to be healthy, to be free from Depression.

At times we get so addicted to our condition that we don’t even want to get better anymore, we’ve just accepted that this is how it will always be.

In today’s exercise, I’ll put before you a few sentences. You’ll write down in your exercise book only the sentences which relate to you. The beliefs which you have which stop you from wanting to get well or from making reasonable efforts everyday to get well.

For these two exercises I modified some exercises in the Anxiety and Depression Workbook for dummies.

Exercise 1: Change-blocking beliefs

1. If I try to get better I’m likely to fail
2. If I ask for help I will get rejected
3. If I pray I will not be answered
4. Even if I work on my problems I will fail
5. I am too depressed to succeed at getting well
6. I don’t deserve to be happy
7. I don’t expect much out of life
8. I can’t stop thinking about how I have been mistreated
9. Anyone with my life couldn’t help but complain
10. Hardly anyone could appreciate how much I have suffered
11. There’s something fundamentally wrong with me, that’s why I’m distressed
12. I feel helpless in dealing with my plight
13. I feel angry about all the bad things that happened to me
14. Other people don’t understand how difficult my life has been
15. Doing something about my problems would somehow discount the importance of the trauma that has happened in my life

Exercise 2: Disadvantages of these Change-blocking beliefs

For each of those beliefs, make a table and write down how those beliefs are disadvantageous, how they limit your perspective and stop you from making the necessary efforts to get better or from even having the desire to get better.

For example: I don’t deserve to be happy

Disadvantages of this belief:

• Every time something bad will happen to me I will not try to get better because I don’t even believe that I deserve to be happy
• I will let the spirit of depression rule over my life because I think that I don’t deserve to be happy
• I will not try anything to feel better because I think that I don’t deserve to feel better

Write down all those disadvantages, and don’t read further till you’ve finished.

Now that you’ve written down all those disadvantages I want us to look at an interesting story in The Bible.

JOHN 5:1‭-‬9 AMP

Later on there was a Jewish feast (festival), and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now in Jerusalem, near the Sheep Gate, there is a pool, which is called in Hebrew (Jewish Aramaic) Bethesda, having five porticoes (alcoves, colonnades). In these porticoes lay a great number of people who were sick, blind, lame, withered, [waiting for the stirring of the water; for an angel of the Lord went down into the pool at appointed seasons and stirred up the water; the first one to go in after the water was stirred was healed of his disease.] There was a certain man there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus noticed him lying there [helpless], knowing that he had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, “Do you want to get well?” The invalid answered, “Sir, I have no one to put me in the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am coming [to get into it myself], someone else steps down ahead of me.” Jesus said to him, “Get up; pick up your pallet and walk.” Immediately the man was healed and recovered his strength, and picked up his pallet and walked. Now that day was the Sabbath.

You see, this man’s situation is quite similar to ours. He didn’t choose to be Ill for thirty-eight years, just like you didn’t choose to suffer from depression.

He probably was living a peaceful life before his illness changed everything. A single event, modified his whole life. Indeed, The Bible acknowledges the fact that he was helpless.

In fact, in order for him to be healed there was competition and he wasn’t able to get first into the water.

Perhaps today you’re depressed and the only solutions for you seem to be too expensive for you, too demanding for you, just out of reach. Perhaps the medical care you need isn’t even available where you are right now.

What’s most interesting for me is the fact that our Lord Jesus Christ comes to him and asks “Do you want to get well?”

I would consider it to be quite a weird question “If I didn’t want to get well why would I be here?”

But this question was extremely important and it’s not by chance that The Lord let us know his answer.

John 5:7 AMP

“Sir, I have no one to put me in the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am coming [to get into it myself], someone else steps down ahead of me.

This verse says everything.

The man is asked if he wants to get well, and he answers Jesus that he has no one to put him in the water. In order words, he puts the blame of him not being well on others. (And of course he’s not wrong, he’s being logical)

If no one puts him into the water first, he won’t be healed. That’s in his paradigm because the only solution he sees for him to be healed is to enter into the water first when the angel would stir it.

“If only someone put me into the water I would get well”

I wonder what our reply would be if Jesus asked us if we want to get well.

• If my mother/father treated me better I would get well
• If I got married I would get well
• If my fiance treated me better I would get well
• If my spouse did what had to be done I would get well
• If my boss didn’t put so much work on me I would get well
• If I had money to pay for therapy and drugs I would get well
• If I had children I would get well
• If I finally had more money in my bank account I would get well
• If the pastor had time to pray for me I would get well

We look up to someone or something to make us get well, but Jesus Christ came to let us know that we can stop blaming others for us not being well, and that we can start looking up to Him, because He is the answer, He is the solution, not in a distant future but right here right now.

We’ve been narrow-minded enough to think that someone could make us feel better. You know what, perhaps indeed you would feel better if people treated you better, but it’s not the only way. The man in the story thought that the water was the only way, and you think for a reason or another that the only way for you to get better is for example to finally get married, or to have a different spouse, or to have a better boss, or a better job.

Today, Jesus Christ wants to take our focus off people and stuff to make us get well, and He wants to show us that He can do it all by Himself.

You see the list of Change-blocking beliefs you made earlier ? This is the moment to take every item on that list and to tell Jesus “Even though I think that________ I will trust in You to make me get well. Yes I really want to get well and I want You to heal me”

Just like Jesus Christ healed that man, He will heal you, I have faith for you.

Nevertheless, healing starts with your own desire to get well. Today, you have to make a firm decision that you won’t blame anyone or anything for you not getting well, and you’ll turn to Jesus Christ to make you well.

Prayer

Father Lord God Almighty, I confess that I have been so used to being depressed that I let negative thoughts convince me that I couldn’t get better. Today I choose not to blame anyone anymore for me not being well, and to put my complete trust in Jesus Christ to heal me. In Jesus Christ’s Name. Amen.

It’s Now Your Turn

Leave a comment below on any Change-blocking belief which you had and anyone/anything whom you were blaming for not feeling well.

Make a firm decision that you won’t blame anyone anymore for not being well and that you will turn to Jesus Christ to heal you.

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Invitation

Click here if you’re looking for a church. I recommend Elevation Church to you. A wonderful Christ-centered Church in which you aren’t limited by your location and in which you can see what God can do through you.

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