Drop ItSample

Do you know what you need? For most of us, it's difficult to separate what we actually need from what we really just want. If we are honest, the things that we want reveal some of the idols of our hearts.

Now, if Jesus asked me, “What do you want me to do for you?” I am pretty confident I wouldn't tell him I wanted more of an idol in my life. I’m guessing you wouldn’t either. But what would I answer? I'm not sure I know. Do you?

God makes Bartimaeus articulate his needs in order to unlock his miracle and to teach us a lesson.

Jesus wants our fullest attention combined with the self-examination necessary to know that he is necessary. Bartimaeus knew precisely what he wanted: his sight. Knowing what we need involves the one thing that so many of us wish to face: our deficits.

When we go to Jesus, if we are as desperate and as definitive as Bartimaeus, things will happen. We need Jesus to do something for us, and the only prerequisite is an answer to his question: “What do you want me to do for you?”

This is the most important question God ever asks us, and the one to which we most frequently give the wrong answer. Our answer to this question will reveal whether we want death or life, whether we want to be healed from our blindness or selfishly want to use God to do our bidding and fulfill our own desires.

We often ask for all the wrong things in life, focusing on the things we can see and touch. The harsh reality is the most important things in life generally aren’t things. Maybe we should take a lesson from the blind man's book and stop focusing on what we can see, do some serious self-examination, and start giving a great answer to Jesus’ question.