The Deadpool in Your Life

 I love Batman but that is pretty much the extent of my superhero knowledge. So, lately I’ve been watching a lot of superhero, villains and Japanese anime shows. Last month,  I watched the movie Deadpool, and although it’s not your usual family friendly superhero movie I still saw a very interesting storyline in it.

Deadpool, a.ka. Wade Wilson, is a fictional anti superhero. Before he became Deadpool he was an assassin who found out he had an aggressive type of cancer. In hopes for a cure, he went through tortuous experiential testing that caused massive body disfiguration yet he obtained advance healing powers that cured his cancer. Wilson, however became so depressed of his outward appearance that he wanted to die. He went to his favorite hang out bar where they had a bet going of which assassin would be the next to die. This bet was called Deadpool and because of how he was feeling about himself, he re-named himself this.

The word Deadpool, although totally unrelated, made me think of the Pool of Bethesda in the Bible.  This pool had an influx of people going to it who were sick, blind, disabled and paralyzed waiting in hopes to be cured. Now, at a certain time, an angel would come down and stir this pool of water and whoever stepped in it first would be healed.

Can you imagine waiting on something, like being in a long line at a grocery store and another lane opens up and the person who was in the back of your line rushes to the open lane and they get attended to first? You may think to yourself, “well that wasn’t fair, it wasn’t their turn!” This is what happened to the man who was sick for thirty-eight years at the Pool of Bethesda. When Jesus asked the man do you want to get well? The man said in John 5 verse 7, “Sir,” he replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”

I can only assume that he was discouraged and depressed about not only his condition but continuously missing his opportunity to get healed. He probably thought he was going to be left for dead, and like Wade Wilson, he more than likely renamed this pool Dead pool; wondering would he too be the next to die? Sometimes our situation can become so grim,  that no matter who says they are there for you, you still may feel unsupported. The enemy will  tell you that no one cares about you. As a result of this, you create your own Pool of Bethesda, waiting for your turn to be healed as you tell yourself there is no one to help put you in the pool.

As I read about this man, I started feeling sorry for him but then I thought, he wasn’t desperate enough! When you become desperate, you realize that you don’t have time to always depend on others to get you where you need to be. There has to be a drive inside you that positions yourself into survival mode. This is when you hit your turning point and tell yourself you are tired of crying about your situation, tired of feeling sorry for yourself; action is now required! This type of desperation was shown with the woman with the issue of blood. A man named Jauirus asked Jesus to heal his daughter, however as Jesus was on his way to see his daughter,  the woman with a issue of blood was desperate enough that she pushed through people and reached out and touched Jesus. By touching Him, her issue of blood ceased. Now this woman knew it wasn’t her turn for Jesus to see her, but she was desperate enough to fight through and therefore she got healed first.

How desperate are you to get your healing? To no longer accept that your temporal condition is definitive for your life? That despite what your outward circumstance looks like you know and believe the promises God has for you. Can you become so desperate for God that you believe that once that angel stirs the water at your pool that God can hold things back so that you can get to your healing first? To get that job 100 people applied for? To get approved for the house they told you, based on your credit score you couldn’t get? When you remember whose you are, you don’t care about whose turn it may look like it is, when you declare and decree victory through Christ Jesus it is your time! Chase after God! Your life and purpose is depending on it. Don’t accept Deadpools’ bet as your story. Let your bet for your life state: