God’s efforts are strongest when our efforts are useless!  I want you to listen to some revealing dialogue between a man who’d been paralyzed for years. Jesus encounters him at the pool of Bethesda where he’d gone hoping to get into the healing waters (John 5).

Jesus asks him, “Do you want to be well?”

“Sir, there is no one to help me get into the pool. While I’m coming to the water, someone else always gets in before me.”

“Stand up,” Jesus respond.  “Pick up your mat and walk.”

“And immediately the man picked up his mat and began to walk.”

I wish we would do that; I wish we would take Jesus at His word. I wish we would learn that when He says something, it happens. What is this peculiar paralysis that confines us? What is this stubborn unwillingness to be healed? When Jesus tells us to stand—let’s stand!  Yes, God’s efforts are strongest when our efforts are useless.  So, let’s lean upon Him!