“Get Up and Get On with Your Life”
“Peter heals in the name of Jesus and commands the man he healed to get up and get on with his life. It is Jesus who heals us. Through his grace we, like Peter, are able to bring the comfort and healing power of Jesus to others. We are at one and the same time both the one healed and the one who brings about healing.” (“3-Minute Retreat,” from Loyola Publishing, June 24, 2020)
I was paralyzed from the waist down for a few months when I was in the fifth grade. A bad fall on the ice led (apparently) to a badly pinched nerve. Thanks to a chiropractor, time, and God, I was able to walk and run again. It was scary.
Today’s “3-Minute Retreat” devotional was based on the story (in Acts 9) about man who had been paralyzed for eight years.
“Peter went off on a mission to visit all the churches. In the course of his travels he arrived in Lydda and met with the believers there. He came across a man—his name was Aeneas—who had been in bed eight years paralyzed. Peter said, “Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you. Get up and make your bed!” And he did it—jumped right out of bed. Everybody who lived in Lydda and Sharon saw him walking around and woke up to the fact that God was alive and active among them.” (Acts 9:32-35, The Message)
I liked the way today’s retreat master for Loyola put it: “Peter heals in the name of Jesus and commands the man he healed to get up and get on with his life.”
Some of us are paralyzed, but not in our body. No, it is much more serious than that. We are paralyzed by fear, by lust, by greed, by any number of paralyzing agents in our life.
And then, along comes Jesus and says, perhaps through another person like Peter, sometimes very directly, “Get up and get on with your life!” Perhaps Jesus says this to us, even to get us out of bed in the morning.
And so, in the name of Jesus, I say unto thee, “Get up and get on with your life!”
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