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Jesus walks into a scene described in John 5:2-4 at the pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem. The scripture tells us there lay a multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, and withered—hundreds of people waiting for healing. The word Bethesda means "house of mercy," yet the atmosphere was filled with competition and desperation as people waited for an angel to stir the water and provide healing to whoever jumped in first.
Before diving into the passage, Pastor Mike begins with a foundational question that cuts to the heart of our spiritual lives.
Do you want it?
This isn't asking if you know what God said, if you pray about it, post about it, or talk about it. The question is deeper: Deep down in the parts of you that nobody sees, do you want it?
Many of us face what Pastor Mike calls the principle of inactive agreement—saying yes with our mouths but no with our behavior. This creates spiritual dissonance: a conflict between what we believe, what we desire, and how we actually live.
Dissonance is when two things that should agree don't agree. It's the internal tension that happens when your thoughts, actions, and values don't match up.
The real problem isn't that people say they want something. The issue is when our words don't match our actions:
When are we going to reach a point where what we say matches what we do?
Pastor Mike challenges us to consider: your praise proves what you're really waiting on. When you genuinely want something, your behavior changes. Your worship becomes undeniable proof of your desire.
When you really want something and get around people who have it, something inside you responds. Your neighbor will look at you wondering why you're shouting—because your praise looks like you ain't got bills, problems, enemies, haters, sickness, stress, or distractions.
But that's the power of genuine expectation. You don't praise God because you think something will happen. You praise God because you know something will happen.
If you want it, act like it. This means aligning your behavior with your confession:
This isn't fake—you're acting like what you're expecting. The problem is when people walk around antithetical to what they're declaring. They say one thing but live another way entirely.
Jesus approaches a man who has been sick for 38 years—longer than Jesus himself has been alive. Notice what Jesus doesn't ask him:
Instead, Jesus asks: > "Do you want to be made whole?"
This is critical. Sometimes the most spiritual thing God can do is make you confront what you say you want.
We have to be careful what we pray about, because God takes us at our word:
Everybody wants it until they have to fight to get what they're saying they want.
Look at verse six: When Jesus saw him lying there and knew he had been there a long time...
Jesus picked this man out of hundreds because He saw he had been in that predicament for a long time. Have you ever considered that your length might actually be your strength? Sometimes God makes you wait the longest because He's about to do something for you that nobody else can reproduce.
But we must pause here: your long time ain't my long time. Someone struggling for 12 years and someone struggling for 12 days are both struggling. We shouldn't hate on each other's timelines.
Jesus knew he had been there a long time—not because they had a conversation, but because He saw his posture. The word "knew" in Greek is ganosco—to know through experience. Jesus looked at how he was lying there and immediately understood: he's been in this a long time.
There's a profound insight here: perhaps Jesus asked "Do you want to be well?" because he might have become comfortable in his broken state.
When you've been broken for a long time, brokenness becomes normal. Being late doesn't scare you. Stuff being cut off doesn't scare you. You've adapted. You've learned to function within your dysfunction. This is different from being newly broken—someone newly struggling won't even go to the store or out to eat because they're afraid. But someone who's been broke for a long time? They still go out to eat; they just watch the numbers carefully, knowing an overdraft might come through. They ain't going hungry because they ain't got no money—it's because you become comfortable.
The pool of Bethesda was more than just a healing site. It was a hospital of halted hopes.
Halted hopes capture the emotional and spiritual reality of having expectation without manifestation. It's when dreams, prayers, and desires were once moving forward but now feel paused, delayed, or dead.
Simply put:
Halted hope is what psychologists call learned helplessness. This occurs when repeated disappointment trains you to stop expecting change. When disappointment becomes a pattern, you eventually accept it as normal and stop believing things can be different.
Consider a practical illustration: I have a dog at home with an electronic collar that's supposed to keep him contained within our yard. The collar has a battery—much like a smoke detector battery—that needs regular replacement through a subscription service. The battery has been dead for three years. My dog could leave the yard anytime, but pain has trained him to stay within that boundary. He doesn't realize he's been free for years.
Many of you don't realize the same thing spiritually. Disappointment has convinced you that your current situation is as good as it gets. You've accepted betrayal as normal because it's happened so many times. You've resigned yourself to financial struggle because nobody in your family ever had money. You've normalized dysfunction in relationships. The devil is a liar. That's learned helplessness, and it's a lie.
You might switch up over the next season, and people won't understand why. They'll say you changed. But what really happened is you realized you had learned helplessness in your relationships, your career, your faith. You're so used to disappointment that you've accepted false narratives as truth.
But here's what changes everything: halted hope is not the end. Whenever you experience halted hope, it's a setup for divine interruption.
Divine interruption is when God breaks into your routine, rhythm, or reality—not to harm you, but to heal, redirect, and accelerate. It's when God disrupts your schedule, your comfort, or your expectation to fulfill His will, not yours.
Scripture is full of these moments:
Everybody wants breakthrough. But sometimes God has to break some things up so you can finally walk in your breakthrough. What felt like rejection was actually redirection.
Here's something critical: God is not just changing your path. He's correcting your pace.
Path is where you're going. Pace is how fast you're going to get there. God customizes your path to your purpose, but He also sets your pace for your development. Sometimes God speeds you up. Sometimes God slows you down.
The problem isn't always where you're going. Sometimes God slows your pace down because if you got there too quick, you wouldn't have been ready. David was anointed king, but he didn't get the crown immediately. His path was to the crown, but God had to slow his pace. If God had put him on the throne without knowing how to fight, nobody would have testified about his victories. Instead, people said, "Saul killed his thousands, but David killed his ten thousands." His slowness became his credential.
Some delays aren't denials. They're divine speed limits. God says, "If I keep letting you move at the pace you're moving, you're going to crash out."
I'm so grateful God didn't give me everything when I wanted it. I'm so glad God didn't let me have this level of influence and these quality of people until I was nearly forty. Had God given this to a thirty-three-year-old version of me, I would have wasted the blessing.
Think of it this way: I gave one of my sons a car at his sixteenth birthday. But I told another son, "You're not getting a car at sixteen." He said, "Dad, I don't even want one. I'm focused on football. I'm trying to get offers. I want to go to college. Besides, I've got two big brothers who are going everywhere I'm going." So we agreed—after football season. But here's the point: I control the path and the pace. If I see maturity, or if I see a deal I can't pass up, I can speed it up. Because I'm in control, I can accelerate it.
Your problem might be that you're here trying to get there, and God is making you move slow. Meanwhile, you're watching how fast everybody else is going. But you don't realize the car that zoomed past you crashed in the turn. God is looking at you saying, "You're so ready to get there fast, but you don't have to get there fast. I can just bring it to you."
Some of you are depressed over your path. Some of you are frustrated with your pace. Let me ask: Are these the same thing? No. Path is where you're going. Pace is how you're going to get there. They're different struggles.
Look at Exodus 13:17-18. God didn't take Israel the shortest way to the Promised Land. The journey should have taken seven days. It took forty years. Why? God knew the path. But He had to slow down the pace because they weren't ready for war. They had to move slow because they weren't ready to fight. If after forty years they were still scared of giants, imagine how terrified they would have been right away.
So the real question isn't, "Why is God taking so long?" The question might be, "What is He trying to develop in me?"
You're not late. You're learning. You're not behind. You're being built. Don't let the cultural clock rush you into what God is refining for you.
Habakkuk 2:3 says, "For the vision is yet for an appointed time; it hastens toward the goal and will not fail. Though it delays, wait for it." The Message translation puts it beautifully: "Write this. Write it out on big letters so people can run with it. The vision is a witness pointing to what's coming. It aches for the coming. It can hardly wait, and it doesn't lie."
If it seems like it's happening slow, wait. There are certain things you can't say at every church, but I need to say this: If it's on the way, it's going to happen at the right time.
I don't know what your neighbors are going through, but squeeze their hand and shout together, "Wait on it. It's getting ready to happen." Touch somebody and tell them, "Doors are getting ready to open. Yokes are about to be destroyed. Chains are getting ready to break. Sickness is being healed."
The wrong pace on the right path still leads to burnout. In leadership, we call this disruptive movement.
Disruptive movement is when what's comfortable is shaken to reveal what's critical. It's a move of God that breaks norms, interrupts routines, and challenges systems to release revival, reform, and revelation.
Jesus flipping tables in the temple was disruptive movement. David dancing out of his robe was disruptive movement—he broke royal protocol because they told him to be dignified, but David broke the box of formality to show raw worship. The early church was disruptive movement. They didn't grow through marketing; they grew through miraculous disruption—tongues, Holy Spirit, healing, boldness. Gideon winning with three hundred men is disruptive movement. God disrupted traditional battle strategy and used fewer men to gain greater victory.
Here's a word for some of you: God can do less with more. I can accomplish more with fewer resources than you can with many.
God is not raising up another wave of copycats. That season is dead. We're stepping into a season of unadulterated authenticity. God is raising up disruptors—people who flip tables, break ceilings, shake systems with truth, love, and fire.
The reason you don't fit in is because you're a disruptor, and people are intimidated by the dumbed-down version of you. Imagine what happens when you're actually fully being yourself.
You don't just move crowds. You mobilize callings. You don't just go viral. You go vertical. You don't just get attention. You awaken authority. God is looking for people who don't mind being disruptors. That's why you've always had confetti and conspiracy—celebration and conflict in the same seasons. But God said, "I'm giving you the tenacity to praise me in pain, to shout while you're struggling, to give me glory while people are gossiping."
If your neighbor doesn't high-five you, you don't need them to. High-five yourself and shout, "God didn't bring me this far to leave me here."
When we see these people—sick, blind, lame, withered—their conditions represent calling, delay, and destiny. But there's another word: confused capacity.
Confused capacity is when you don't know how much you really carry, so you mishandle what you were meant to multiply. It's the internal conflict that arises when your calling is greater than your confidence. Your gift is bigger than your grasp. Your potential outweighs your preparation. You've got the oil, but you don't have the understanding. You've got the ability, but you don't have the awareness.
You underestimate what's in you. You overextend in what's not for you. You mislabel what God gave you because it doesn't look like what somebody else has.
I started a church at twenty-five, but people kept telling me I looked younger than I did back then. Church culture taught us that people wouldn't take you seriously unless you looked older. So I wore three-piece suits and fake glasses. That was confused capacity. But I eventually realized: I may never be what they are, but I will be who I am.
Your issue isn't capacity. It's clarity. Your problem isn't power. It's perception. You don't know who you are yet.
In John 5, there are four types of people that Jesus encounters—metaphors for what we see every day: sick, blind, lame, and withered.
Sick means weak, powerless, frail. This represents people lacking strength emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. They've been hit so hard by life that they don't believe like they used to. Some of you aren't lazy—you're spiritually low. You're not just tired. You're empty. You have what we call traumatized faith.
Traumatized faith is a soul that's still functioning outwardly but fractured inwardly. Your faith still exists. It's just wounded. It's not the absence of belief. It's the presence of unresolved pain. It's not a lack of theology. It's a heart trying to protect itself from further disappointment. Traumatized faith is the spiritual version of emotional scar tissue.
In John chapter 5, Jesus encounters four types of people that serve as metaphors for what we see every day: sick, blind, lame, and withered.
Sick means weak, powerless, and frail. This represents people lacking strength emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. They've been hit so hard by life that they don't believe like they used to.
Some of you aren't lazy—you're just spiritually low. You're not just tired; you're empty. You have what we call traumatized faith.
Traumatized faith is a soul that's still functioning outwardly but fractured inwardly. Your faith still exists. It's just wounded. It is not the absence of belief. It's the presence of unresolved pain. It's not a lack of theology. It's a heart trying to protect itself from further disappointment.
Traumatized faith is the spiritual version of emotional scar tissue. When I tore my left ACL, it healed, but I will forever have that scar. I had to work through all the scar tissue. Your belief has been beat and damaged so long. Your natural father hasn't been present so long that it's hard to trust a spiritual father. Even when you start trusting your pastor, that scar tissue reminds you of past pain. Sometimes you make a move and feel it all over again.
Blind means spiritually shortsighted. How do you know you're blind? Because you keep bumping into patterns and repeating cycles, missing signs, and trusting what looks familiar over what's faithful.
I've never in my life been more ready for the unfamiliar. I'm ready to get hurt by new people. I'm ready to be lost. Some of you vacation at the same place every year. You already know where you're going to eat. But I'm ready to go somewhere new and ask, "Where do we turn?" I don't want to be a slave to the familiar. I'm ready to trust God in a new way.
Lame means limping, maimed, halted. The Bible doesn't tell us how this person got that way. We just know he was like that for 38 years.
Withered means dried up, shrunken, paralyzed, and separated from a member. Spiritually, this speaks to areas that once were fruitful but are now forgotten.
Jesus came and healed this man. He told him to take up his mat and leave. But here's what I want you to see: this brother got a breakthrough, but everybody else didn't.
If it isn't your season for Jesus to say "Rise up," then it's time to wake up. You may be waiting on a superstition versus the supernatural.
I pray against the spirit of halted hope. I pray that eyes are opened, yokes are destroyed, and chains are broken. Years of hurt, compounded confusion, things that happened in childhood, things that happened in your past, things that happened this year that you're functioning with but still not fully over—God is reversing that right now.
We don't need numbers. We need wholeness. Let them understand that their faith isn't in a flawless man. It's in a perfect God.
For those dealing with faith fatigue, halted hope, spiritual exhaustion, and inadequacies—feeling empty mentally, financially, and emotionally—I ask that God restore and replenish every area of your life that's experiencing lack.
Weeks ago, I stood before this church and said something's coming. We may be at World War II. But this is the season to come back to the heart of worship. This is the season to forsake fame and fortune and fall on our face before God and say, "God, if we ever needed you, we need you right now."
Oil prices will rise. Gas prices will skyrocket. Grocery prices may go through the roof. But I stand on the word that says, "I've never seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed beg for bread."
As stores close, God will put us in position to buy them so people can get groceries. He will connect us with farmers markets. He will put a hedge of protection around us so that no weapon formed against us shall prosper. We are God's children, and on that solid rock we will forever stand.
I pray that you understand the difference between path and pace. You're not being held back; you're being developed. You're not losing; you're learning. You're not being punished; you're being built.
I pray that the hand you're holding walks in obedience and has the strength to stand on what God told them. I pray Psalm 91 over your life—that you who dwell under the shadow of the Almighty will find rest. I speak Psalm 23 over your life: "Yea, though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death."
Let this week be a week of thank yous—for every high place and every low place, every win and every loss. There will never be another season of our life where we don't put God first in our time, our giving, and our relationships. If God doesn't bless it, we don't want it.
