When Healing Is Hardਨਮੂਨਾ

When Healing Requires Letting Go

Sometimes, healing comes with sacrifice.

It’s not just about feeling better—it’s about following Jesus into something unfamiliar, even uncomfortable.

In John 5, when Jesus asked the man who had been lame for 38 years, “Do you want to be made whole?” He didn’t just stop at the question. He gave the man a clear instruction: “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.”

At first glance, it sounds simple. But when I sat with that verse, something deeper stood out to me—Jesus didn’t just tell him to walk. He told him to pick up his mat. The very thing he had been lying on. The thing that represented his old reality. And then… walk.

That moment wasn’t just about physical healing. It was about movement. About leaving behind what had once defined him.

I wonder what that must have felt like. For nearly four decades, this man had lay in the same place, surrounded by the same crowd, facing the same disappointment over and over again. The pool at Bethesda may have been a place of pain, but it was also familiar. It was predictable. Maybe, in some ways, it even felt like home.

Healing meant leaving all of that behind.

Jesus didn’t just give him strength in his legs—He called him into a new chapter. And that new chapter required change.

Friend, can I gently ask you: what are you still lying beside, hoping for healing but afraid to leave?

Sometimes, we ask God to heal us, but we want to stay in the same environment, with the same people, holding onto the same habits. We want breakthrough without movement. Freedom without surrender. Growth without change.

But healing often comes with transition.

Sometimes, God’s healing requires us to move—physically, emotionally, relationally, or spiritually. It may mean walking away from people who once felt safe but can no longer walk with you into the next season. It may mean letting go of a version of yourself that was built on survival instead of wholeness. It may mean trusting God to show you how to live healed when all you've known is broken.

I know it’s hard. Change always is. But Jesus doesn’t call us out of one place without preparing something better ahead.

You don’t have to stay in familiar pain just because it’s comfortable. You don’t have to remain stuck beside the same “pool” hoping something will change. When Jesus calls you to rise, He also gives you the strength to walk.

And friend, He will walk with you.

Prayer:

Jesus,

I’m tired of lying in the same place, stuck in pain that feels familiar. Give me the courage to rise, the strength to let go, and the faith to walk into the healing You’ve prepared for me. I trust You to lead me, even when change feels hard. I say yes to wholeness. I say yes to You.

Amen.

Journal Prompt:

• What “mat” have you been holding onto—something from your past that you’ve been afraid to leave behind?
• Where might God be calling you to move or shift to experience deeper healing?