Better...... or Better

My morning started out with a phrase that caught my eye, or rather my ear. 

It Doesn't Get Better. 

I was watching a segment of the CBS Sunday Morning show where they were doing a story about Outpost Keating in Afghanistan. Battle of Kadesh .  One of the comments made was that they couldn't control the situation they were in or many other things, but they had written on a wall, It Doesn't Get Better. 
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In light of some things I am trying to implement in my own daily life, this made me think.  What that statement means all depends on how you say it.  It DOESNT get better.  Meaning just give up and accept where you are at.  Survive, don't expect anything more than that.  It doesn't get BETTER.  Wow, Life is great and cant get any better than this. There are also several levels in between those two statements, in my mind.  It seems to me that any way you put that group of words, what happens to you is all dependent on the world around you, the people around you, and the events around you.  Things are going well, it doesn't get any BETTER.  You loose someone, something, things aren't going your way...... It DOESNT get any better.   This is it, its all there is.  But what if it ISNT? 
What if it depends on how each of us CHOOSES to see the things in life.  It doesn't get better and it isn't going to so give up... or take each day as the best day in the world no matter WHAT is happening in your environment. 

Do you WANT to be healed?

Then, I go to church and our sermon of the day comes from John 5: 1-9.  Man at the Sheep Gate Pool


There is a man who has been crippled for 38 years laying on a mat beside the pool.  This pool is notorious for being a healing pool.  Jesus sees the man, and goes over to him and asks him (in the NIV version) "Do you want to be healed?"  Again, we don't have inflection or facial expressions to go with this.. but try it on for size different ways.. DO you want to be healed?  Do YOU want to be healed?   Do you WANT to be healed?  Do you want to be HEALED?  Does a different inflection change the meaning ever so slightly of this sentence?  Maybe it does. 

But how does this man answer the question?  He doesn't give Jesus a yes or no answer, he gives Jesus all the reasons that healing has not happened for him.  He hasn't been healed because he doesn't have any people with him to put him in the water at the right moment.  The other people who can move better are faster and get there before he can.  Its not his fault he hasn't been healed yet, its other peoples.  Can you just see Jesus stare at him and tell hi so get up and take your mat and walk.  So, he does.   Soon some of the leaders ask him how it is that he is carrying his mat around with him when he should KNOW that it is against church law on the Sabbath... His answer to those men is "HE TOLD ME TO!!!!!"   Not, hey, I haven't taken a step by myself in 38 years when this guy came and told me to get up and walk and take my mat home with me.  So, before long he does go to the temple, because, remember it IS the Sabbath and he should be there and all.  Jesus comes along and "finds him there"  Jesus tells him You are healed, so don't go sin anymore or something worse might happen to you.  (Worse than not being able to more by yourself for 38 years? Interesting)  Then our cripple's part in this story ends with him racing off to tell "the powers that be"  his name was Jesus!!! That's the guy who told me to break the law.  I only did it because he told me to. If he hadn't healed me I wouldn't have been able to.   I had no control over the situation.

So how interesting to me it was to have these two questions brought up to me in the same day. 
It doesn't get better!........... Do you want to get better?   
How about, it doesn't get better unless I want to get better, and I have to take an active part in getting better to get better? 

This covers so many areas. Personally,  I want to get better at what I am doing in my business, with organizing my world and being truly effective each and every day, so that I can honor those who came before me and leave a legacy of effective living to those coming behind me.

I understand that there are things that happen to us that we honestly have no control over,  illness that debilitates us or is even life threatening.  We can want to get better very badly and sometimes that is just not going to happen, however, I'm going to get better maybe in that case is just about how we treat the people around us no matter how we feel.  Maybe its just about looking for the good things in life and seeing what kind of a legacy we can and should leave behind. Everyone has areas in their life that could be improved.   Some of us have sustained great loss. There are emotions that must be dealt with, disappointment, guilt, anger, insecurity, pride.   Butt some point, the question is, Do I want to get better?  Or It doesn't get better.  Which will it be?