August 4: John 5:1-10

Key Verse: John 5:7
‘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.’

Devotion:
How frustrated do you get with things in life which you can’t quite master? How many times have you tried to do something before you give up and try to move on… but you can’t give up and go try again, only to fail once again? I know there are things like this in my life and I sometimes get to the stage where any attempt to accomplish the task is not done with any confidence at all – we give it a go but expect to fail once again.

Sometimes it is the big things in our lives which we seem to fail at and ones we always get wrong – maybe something as big as relationships and we just can’t seem to succeed! This man had been an invalid for thirty eight years and I’m sure was at the end of his tether with trying. But he was still there with hope in his heart. That was the key, having hope and wanting to succeed. Even though he had not been able to get to the pool to be healed, he still had hope.

That is the key. Hope! We need to remember there is still hope, not in what we can achieve, but in accomplishing what cannot be done. How so? Because we still have Christ on our side. Jesus saw this man and walked up to him knowing his situation but also knowing he still clung on to the hope God would be able to heal him one day. Jesus was about to make it happen there and then without being asked directly!

God wants us to be in the best places at the best times, but far too often we get caught up in the world and find ourselves in the worst places at seemingly the worst times! We need to cling to the hope Christ has promised us and to trust God will do something about our situations. I have learned this and now try to lean more on this hope each day, trusting and knowing God still performs miracles!

Points to Ponder:
Are you frustrated with your life?

Will you cling to that last ounce of hope?