What Do You Want Him To Do For You?

Our house church met tonight.  I don't even know how to express what happened except to say that hearts were open like I don't know if I've seen before with our group and I absolutely loved it.  And that I personally was pretty wrecked by the Lord tonight, in the best way imaginable.

We studied the story of the blind man, Bartimaeus, to whom Jesus restored sight in Mark 10:46-52.

We noted together how Bartimaeus cried out repeatedly, asking Jesus to have mercy on Him.  He was undignified.  He was not well-put-together.  He didn't care.  He knew he needed Jesus.

And how Jesus then stopped (as opposed to continuing on), called for Bartimaeus to come to him, asking him this question:

"What do you want me to do for you?"

I'd imagine Jesus already knew what Bart wanted.  He was obviously a beggar and obviously blind.  Still.... he ASKED.

Bart's obvious answer:  "I want to see."

Done.

Jesus said, "Go. Your faith has healed you."

Despite what this may look like, I'm not taking this in the direction of discussing healing and faith and all of that right now....or at least, not necessarily.  All I want to focus on is Jesus' question.... it was the bottom line for me today with the Lord, for all of us tonight in our house church community, and I think it's the bottom line for many of us.


"What do you want me to do for you?"

Jesus asked.  He asked even though He knew.  Why?  He wanted Bart to tell Him what He wanted.  He wanted to connect with Bart's heart.... to engage him.  

Jesus could have waved his hand and healed Bart and not looked twice... but I believe He was after relationship, the connectedness (if that's a word) of Bart's heart to His... just as much as, or even more than, He wanted Bart's eyes opened.

I believe this is what He's after in us... the journey... the process... the relationship... the persistent telling Him what we want from Him even though He already knows all our needs.  He wants to engage our hearts.

"What do you want me to do for you?"

I want freedom.  Freedom from fear of man, freedom from fear of my own heart and motives, freedom to worship and lead and love with a wide-open, extravagant, fully alive heart.  Freedom to just not care whether my expression of my heart before Him is messy or undignified or well-put-together.  That was my answer to His question to me tonight.

What about you?  What do you want Him to do for you?  He will meet us in our answers to that question.  

Can I encourage you today?  Don't let these just be more words on a web page.  

If you've read this far, take a minute and pray your heart to the Lord right now.  He's asking you:

"What do you want me to do for you?"

Respond to Him in this moment.  Close your eyes.  See Him standing before you, asking... and give Him your answer.  He wants to engage your heart.

Comment with your answer if you'd like. (Comment link is under this post's title.)  I'd love to stand with you, to agree with you before the Father today....