Mark 10:46-52
46 And they came to Jericho. And as he was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a great crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the roadside. 47 And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” 48 And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he cried out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” 49 And Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart. Get up; he is calling you.” 50 And throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. 51 And Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” And the blind man said to him, “Rabbi, let me recover my sight.”52 And Jesus said to him, “Go your way; your faith has made you well.” And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him on the way.
This would be the last healing recorded in the book of Mark. The author recounted that while Jesus was in Jericho, a blind man named Bartimaeus heard that Jesus was there. When he heard Jesus was in the distance, he started shouting to get the attention of God. And the crowd’s response was to silence him.
Have you ever felt that way at times when in desperation you call to God and people downplay your act of faith as if there is no more solution – even God can’t do it so let it be. But for Bartimaeus, the discouragement that came from the crowd did not silence him for an encounter with Jesus. In fact, he even shouted louder to get Jesus’ attention.
And Jesus did. Jesus stopped what he was doing and called for Bartimaeus to come. When he was with Jesus, Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?”
Seems like an obvious question to ask but I’ve been thinking about the same question. Many times we come to God asking for something that we don’t need. Maybe today, when a blind man would come to Jesus – they might ask for money, or food and not sight. Or a person with deep insecurity might ask for a love life or a beautiful body rather than asking Jesus to fill him/her with His securing love. Or a rich man would ask for more money rather than ask Jesus for contentment.
Apparent questions and sometimes our answers are not. For Bartimaeus, he asked that his eyesight would recover. And his faith made him well.
How about you? Does your faith allow you to ask God for the right things or the proper requests? Sometimes our blindness from what we need is the reason we are not getting the answers that we want. Something we need to consider about.