by “What do you want/ what are you seeking?” Jesus asked two of his first disciples when they attempted to follow him.
Instead of answering his question directly, they inquired where he was staying and followed him.
The next time Jesus asked that was to two other disciples who wanted VVIP treatment in heaven.
“What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked James and John when they called him aside to ask for a favour, a big favour — that they seat on his right and left when he comes into his Father’s kingdom.
“What do you want,” Jesus asked blind Bartimaeus who had been yelling Christ’s name from the top of his voice from across the street as crowds tried to hush him.
“Rabbi, where are you staying,” was the Andrew and his friend’s response to Jesus.
“Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you,” the Zebeddes said.
“Lord, I want to see,” Bartimaeus answered Jesus.
“Come see,” Jesus told the disciples of John.
“You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus told the sons of Zebedee.
“Go, your faith has healed you,” Jesus told Bartimaeus.
“Would you like to be healed?” Christ asked a man who had sat by a pool for 35 years waiting for an angel to stir the pool that he may dip himself in and be healed.
“What do you want me to do for you?” This is pertinent question that Jesus will ask of us his followers and seekers at one time or another; when he finds us following him like Andrew and his friend, when he finds us in the prayer closet like the sons of Zebedee asking for a favour, when he hears us wailing his name in the midst of our trouble.
“What do you want?”
Do we even know what we want? Can we verbalise our desires before God? May be we don’t get what we want because we don’t even know what we want, or we don’t have the courage to turn out ‘unspokens’ into ‘spokens’. May be we are in that category that Apostle James in his letter referred to ‘who have not for they ask not’. We don’t have what we want because we do not ask God for it.
And may be in quantifying and verbalising our need, we will understand God’s great power in working our what is impossible to us. We can give thanks tangibly because we have no doubt God performed a miracle.
Will we come to God, open and honest, not with unspoken prayers, but with the courage to say out the desperate aching of our hearts, the dreams and promises birthed in our hearts?
Will we be real and honest with ourselves and our savior? What do we really want? What’s the desperate cry that has taken us to the feet of Christ? What’s the silent scream inside of us that has us hollering like Bartimaeus?
If faith is tye confidence that what we hope for will come to pass, what are you hoping for?
Take time to dream some God-sized dreams and discover promises meant for you in scripture. Have some things you hope for so your faith has some birthing to do. Then when Jesus finds you following him and asks you, ‘what do you want?’ you will actually have an answer. Conversely don’t ask of God in prayer something you are not sincere about.
In the book The Circle Maker, Mark Batterson challenges Christians to come up with a list of God-glorifying life goals and to write them down, then circle them in prayer. He writes: “Well-developed faith results in well-defined prayers, and well-defined prayers result in a well-lived life… Don’t just pray- keep a prayer journal… Spell your miracle.” And then he adds: “When our prayers aren’t specific, God gets robbed of the glory he deserves because we second-guess whether or not He actually answered them.”
Whether holy or ignoble — the motivation of our cry, of our following Christ — we are required to authentically answer this question, without softening our answers or sugarcoating. Jesus can handle it. And we have a Father who delights to give us good gifts. God is for us.
May be we will find our lifelong calling like the disciples. May be we will be rebuked like James and John. But maybe will receive our miracle like Bart.
What do you want?
