Article January 26, 1998 Issue

Feeling trapped by circumstances?

Learn the truth that sets you free

By Doreen L. Wheeler

Are you waiting for someone else to change or to take action before you think things will get better for you? Not too long ago, I found myself doing just that. I felt my career was going nowhere, and I had few good friends to spend time with. I felt trapped and at the mercy of a lot of things I didn't think I could change. It seemed so clear to me that someone else was going to have to save me from my dead-end job or befriend me and save me from hours of loneliness and boredom.

I shared my feelings of frustration with a friend of mind. She suggested I study the Bible's account of how Christ Jesus healed a man who was paralytic (see John 5:1–9). I was intrigued by her suggestion, although I didn't see how that healing had anything to do with my situation.

The Bible makes clear that a large number of people who needed to be healed were waiting by the pool of Bethesda for an angel to trouble the waters. It was believed that the first person to get into the pool after the troubling of the waters would be healed. Jesus saw a man, who had been sick for thirty-eight years, lying by the side of the pool. When he asked the man if he wanted to be healed, he replied that he had no one to help him get into the pool and someone always got there before he could make it in on his own.

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