Do You Want To Get Well? The Path to Surrender

Redemption Road Mentoring provides recovery services to those who are struggling with sexual/pornography addiction and spouses dealing with betrayal trauma. As the first step in the mentoring process, both struggler and survivor are challenged with the same question:

“Do you want to get well?”

This is a personal question. To the one struggling, it relates to their addiction and behaviors. The survivor tends to focus on wanting their spouse’s addiction and behavior cured but realizes that is out of their control. For them, the question then goes to their need to heal and move forward from the wounds and trauma of betrayal.

The Gospels record Jesus asking a total of 307 questions throughout His ministry. One takes place at the pool of Bethesda and is recorded in the Gospel of John, Chapter 5. Here, we are told of Jesus asking a paralytic, “Do you want to get well?” 

We utilize both content and insights from a sermon series on “10 Questions Jesus Asked” presented by Pastor Jeff Manion of Ada Bible Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Our Conditions

We are told Jesus saw an invalid “lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time”—38 years. If we speculate this man was around 55 years old, it would mean that he had this condition since he was 17. If you had asked him how long he’d been an invalid I’m sure his answer would have been “all of my life!”

Some issues come into our lives, that while discomforting or disruptive, tend to be short-term. An example might be a toothache that doesn’t allow you to sleep, concentrate, or even go about your normal routine. But a visit to the dentist will most often make it just a memory after a few short weeks or even days.

However, conditions don’t want to go away despite our best efforts and intentions—they seem to camp out in our lives, building and creating more and more disruption and pain—not just to ourselves but often to those around us.  

The man at the pool had been in this condition for as long as he can remember. Jesus sees him lying there and asks, “Do you want to get well?” Then He tells him to “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked. But there is a twist to this story of healing! At some point later, Jesus finds him in the temple and a follow-up conversation occurs. Jesus says to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.”

The Outer & Inner Condition

The conditions we are dealing with in our lives may not be paralysis but they can be equally debilitating and threatening. For those facing pornography addiction or betrayal trauma, even though the condition may not be outwardly visible to those around them, the effects can be devastating to them individually as well as for those around them.

When Jesus asks us if we want to get well—what is our response? I’m sure, like the man at the pool of Bethesda, our response will be “Absolutely! Please take this away from me!” We’d like more than anything to stop dealing with the circumstances and consequences of this condition—the shame, hurt, guilt, deceit, betrayal, and more.

But Jesus didn’t ask him if he wanted to BE well—instead the question was if he wanted to GET well. When Jesus instructs him to stop sinning or something worse may happen, Jesus is telling him that, while the outer circumstances of his condition have been healed, the inner condition is still to be addressed. 

As with the paralytic, the conditions we deal with actually consist of two problems. With a pornography/sexual addiction, the outer problem is our acting out behaviors. And for the spouse, it is the loss of trust and damage to a marriage relationship. We want all of these circumstances we find ourselves in to go away. But just as with the paralytic in the story, we still have to address the inner problem and condition to get healed.

Getting to the HEART of the Issue

It is no coincidence that the initial phase of our mentoring program and the first 3 steps of a 12-step program are surrender. When I first began a journey toward recovery I intellectually understood the concept and need for surrender but found it difficult to get to the heart of true surrender.

Until 1543, the accepted understanding of the universe put the Earth at the center with all other celestial bodies circling it. This thinking aligns with our instinctual tendency to see, and put, ourselves at the center of our universe. Only after Copernicus published his model was it accepted that the Earth, and the rest of our solar system, revolves around the sun.

Our lives consist of many things. Family, finances, work, community activities – the list can go on and on. This individual universe is managed in the same way as the solar system, where whatever we place at the center will direct and orientate everything around it. So we need to ask:

What is at the center of our universe?

For many it is family, job, or finances. For those struggling with sexual addiction, it can be lust and self. It is only when we put Jesus, our SON, at the center of our lives that we surrender our inner conditions and answer the question we began with. 

YES – I want to get well!