“Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred.  While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.” – John 5:7, NIV

A few years back, I got a rare opportunity to fly in Business Class.

While in the lounge at a busy airport, I got involved in a discussion with a very wealthy gentleman about different topics.

Inevitably, a discussion about God came up.

Then the shocker:  “I think I don’t need God at all,” the gentleman said bluntly. “There is nothing that I need from God really.” 

From a materialistic perspective, he was probably right. He could afford anything he wanted in life, including the best medical care, legal counsel, etc. 

He didn’t know that without Christ we’re nothing!

In our meditation today, we reflect on a man who had been paralysed for 38 years.

He was at the pool in Siloam along with hundreds of others, desperately waiting for a miracle from God.

Then Jesus passed by the pool and saw him. “Do you want to be healed?” Jesus asked him.

“Oh come on now Lord Jesus,” I can imagine one of the disciples murmuring. “Why would this desperate man lie here day and night in this mess for years if he didn’t want to be healed? Of course he wants to be well, doesn’t he?”

“My problem is that I have no one to help me. Those with someone to help them always go in ahead of me,” the paralysed man replied, as his voice broke with desperation.  

Then Jesus told him to pick up his beddings and go home. Immediately he got healed! Then Jesus walked away.

What? Walked away? Just like that?

I once got involved in a heated discussion with God about this scenario.

“You had all the power to heal all the sick people at this pool with a single word,” I reasoned.

“You enter a hospital that has hundreds of patients who are in terrible pain and misery. You heal just one patient and walk out? No, it’s not fair, Lord.”

Then the Holy Spirit said, “That man was the only one who was actually needy. All the other patients had someone they depended on to help them into the water. This man had no one to help him. I deal with needy people. I can’t be Plan B.”

Though David had become a wealthy king with a powerful army, he never ceased to describe himself as “needy,” which meant that he depended on and was trusting in God alone as his Providence in every area of his life.

In Psalm 72:12, the Psalmist says; “For He will deliver the needy who cry out, the afflicted who have no one to help. He will take pity on the weak and the needy and save the needy from death.”

God doesn’t want to be ‘Plan B’; He must always be ‘Plan A’ in your life.

And if God is always your Plan A rather than Plan B or Plan C, then you’re a needy person; you’re poor in spirit and the Bible says “yours is the Kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3).

Prayer:

Almighty God, I need you, Oh I need You. Every hour I need you, my one defence, my righteousness! When I cannot stand I fall on you, Jesus be my hope and stay.  Amen!