I read in the newspaper recently about some teenagers who loaded up into two vehicles and headed out on a little road trip. They had just graduated from high school, and they were all so excited and fired up, looking forward to a new life and new adventures. They had been talking non-stop as they got into the cars, and kept the conversation going by texting each other as they caravanned down the highway.
The kids in the second vehicle text-mailed someone in the first car with a question: "What are you doing?" But the answer never came. Thirty-one seconds later, the first car veered into oncoming traffic and had a head-on collision with a semi, killing everyone in the car.
What are you doing? It was the last question the teenagers in that car were ever asked. As it turned out, they were about to do something that had never entered their minds just a few minutes before. They found themselves instantly entering eternity.
It's a good question for all of us. Realizing that our time here on the planet is short, what are you doing with your life? Where are you going? What are you living for? What is the meaning of your life? And what will happen to you when you die?
Maybe you've been asking questions like these in recent days. You've been doing some searching, wondering where your life is going and what it all means.
Over 2,000 years ago, Jesus encountered a man who might have asked those very same questions. What am I doing here? Where is my life going? The man was in Jerusalem, waiting by a pool called Bethesda with what the Bible says was a "great number of disabled people … the blind, the lame, the paralyzed." They would congregate by the pool every day, and just wait there. Why? Because an old tradition said that at certain times the water would be supernaturally stirred, and whoever got into the pool first would be healed. This particular man had been waiting for 38 years!
The Bible says, "When Jesus saw him and knew how long he had been ill, he asked him, 'Would you like to get well?'
"'I can't, sir,' the sick man said, 'for I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred up. While I am trying to get there, someone else always gets in ahead of me.'
"Jesus told him, 'Stand up, pick up your sleeping mat, and walk!' Instantly, the man was healed! He rolled up the mat and began walking" (John 5:6-9, NLT).
What a sad scene this had been – all of those people just waiting and waiting around this little body of water, hoping for something to happen, longing for good fortune to come their way, wishing and dreaming of being healed.
When you think about it, that's where many people find themselves in life. Just marking time. Waiting for something to happen. Hoping something will change. A psychologist named William Marsten once asked 3,000 people the question, "What are you living for?" He found that 94 percent of them were simply enduring the present while waiting for the future, waiting for life to happen.
Maybe you've been waiting, too. You once thought, "When I finally get out of high school and go to college, life is going to take off." And then it was, "When I get through college and get my career jump-started, life is really going to be good." And then after you were into your career, you found yourself thinking, "Well, I can't wait to get married. Life will really be good then."
And after that? "If I could just have some kids … If I could just get a divorce … If I could just remarry someone … If I could just pile up a little money …" The good life you keep reaching for always seems to dance out ahead of you, just out of reach. You keep telling yourself, "One of these days it's going to get better. One of these days … one of these days. …"
And then before you realize it, there aren't any days left. Life is over, and you spent all of your years waiting for something to happen.
As that man sitting by the pool in Jerusalem found out, Jesus cares about hurting people. He had time for a man who had nothing left in life but a thin thread of hope that "something might happen." And after hanging out all those years, something did happen. Jesus walked onto the scene, and his life changed forever.
Some people might have looked at that big crowd of people positioned around the pool and thought, "Look at all of those disabled men and women, all those social outcasts," and walked right on by. But not Jesus. He didn't see a group; he saw individuals. The account in the Bible specifically says that Jesus "saw him."
Does that thought amaze you as it amazes me? The great Creator of numberless galaxies and worlds beyond counting looks down at earth and sees me. And He sees you, too, as an individual. The Bible says that the very hairs of your head are numbered. (In my case, that's not a big deal.) The Bible says that God knows your thoughts before you think them, and that He keeps every tear you've ever shed in a bottle. He knows what concerns you. He knows what you've been through and everything there is to know about you. And He has said, "Those who seek Me will find Me."
I think it was the very helplessness of this man's situation that drew Jesus to him. Maybe this guy prayed the night before, "Oh God, if You are really out there, I need to hear from You. Come to me. Help me. Make Yourself real to me." Little did he know that God was going to answer his prayer in person! Because Jesus was God in human form walking this earth. So He came right up to that man so close to despair and said, "I heard your prayer. Do you want to be made whole? Do you want to be changed?"
And He asks us the same question. Do you want to change your life? Do you want to find a purpose for living, a reason to get up every morning and face the day?
One thing is for sure: When Jesus walks onto the scene, things change. Life heads in a new direction. And anything is possible. He is attracted to great need, and He will come to anyone who invites Him.