That's a lot of failure

In the lectionary today:

After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.
~The good news according to John, chapter 5

Now let's assume the waters stirred daily and we take this guy as this word that he tried to get himself to the pool of water believing that if he was the first one in he would be healed. That's 365 days of failure each year times 38 years or 13870 failed attempts at healing. And even if he was disheartened and gave up and didn't even try 10% of the time, he DID try almost 12500 times and FAILED every time.

All I can think of is persistent desperation. And I wonder if I could handle that level of failure and I wonder if I would believe a guy who said, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.”

I have no grand conclusions, but I'm totally in awe of this level of persistence and desperation.