STEP #1 – Prayerful Preparation --.

             In my prayer session, I felt the Lord really moving with me. I thought about how valuable the Fathership of the Father is, and how powerful it is to have family in the Lord's presence. I felt that I was going to be called to speak about family.

             STEP #2 – Selection of Text -- .

             It had already been determined that I would be talking about John 5:5-42. .

             STEP#3 – Attentive Reading-- .

             The image of the angel touching the waters is very powerful. I can imagine the anticipation of the sick people, waiting around the pool, just on edge as they waited to see the waters disturbed. I wonder what they saw – could they actually see the angel descending, or just the way the water rolled when he touched it with his feet. It seems so incredible to our modern sensitivities that there could be a pool of water in the center of a city that was actually touched by an angel and capable of healing. Yet it was real-- the Bible says so – and this man had been sitting there for almost forty years just hoping to get into the water. I can hardly imagine that kind of faith – sitting there for forty years, just hoping against hope that somehow I could get into the water first, despite the fact that I can't even walk. My church needs that kind of faith.

             And then Jesus comes, and offers to heal the man. He doesn't even know who Jesus is yet, he's obviously confused. all he can think about is being healed the way he's always planned. Maybe this is why he's called the impotent man in the King James – he's impotent to think in new ways. he's go great faith, but he's stuck in a rut. He thinks Jesus can help him get into the water, but it never occurs to him that Jesus can save him. It seems like a lot of us are like that – we're stuck with our plans, and we've been dedicated to them for a long time. We think we know how God is going to save us – that an angel is just going to come touch the water and if we're fast enough or faithful enough we'll be cured – but we're so invested in this one way of thinking about miracles that we don't even recognize it when Jesus comes to us offering a different kind of miracle.