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.” 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.(Mark 10:46–52, ESV)
You enter a contest. To your surprise, you win! This time, though, you win big. The prize? An entire day with any Top 100 instructor.
You choose Butch Harmon. Knowing he has worked with some of the greatest players in golf—Tiger Woods, Freddie Couples, Adam Scott, and others—you think to yourself, “Butch has seen a thousand swings and diagnosed every swing flaw imaginable. If anyone can fix me, he can!”
You finally arrive. He watches you hit a dozen shots. You expect him to start changing things immediately. Instead, before you take the next swing, he turns to you and asks, “What do you want me to do for you?”
With your mind racing, you think: Do I want ten more yards? Do I want to eliminate the two-way miss? But underneath it all, what you really want is to build a repeatable swing that holds up under pressure.
At first, his question seems odd. You think, “It should be obvious.” But before Butch can really help you, he needs to know something about you—your goals, your passions, and your level of commitment.
Strikingly, Jesus once asked a blind man that same question.
Bartimaeus was sitting beside the road outside Jericho when he heard that Jesus was passing by. He began shouting, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”
Jesus stopped, told his disciples to call him over, and Bartimaeus came running. Then came one of the most extraordinary questions in all of Scripture: “What do you want me to do for you?” (Mark 10:51).
The man is blind. Surely Jesus knows what he wants. But Jesus requires Bartimaeus to say it. Bartimaeus answers, “Rabbi, let me recover my sight.”
Bartimaeus knew exactly what he wanted, but more importantly, he knew who was asking. Notice how he refers to Jesus: “Son of David.” That is a messianic title, and it gives us an important clue to understanding this story.
Blind Bartimaeus cannot see Jesus with his eyes, but, ironically, he sees what many others in the crowd are blind to. Jesus, the Son of David, is the Messiah. Bartimaeus knows Jesus can do what no one else can.
Suppose Jesus stood before you today and asked, “What do you want me to do for you?” What would you say?
If we answer, “Fix my driver,” or “Give me ten more years of good golf,” there is nothing necessarily wrong with those desires. But there is a good chance we have not yet grasped with whom we are speaking.
Jesus’ question pushes beneath our surface desires to something much deeper. Bartimaeus wanted his sight, but what he received was far more. Jesus said, “Go your way; your faith has made you well.” Mark adds, “Immediately he recovered his sight and followed him on the way.”
That last comment matters. When Bartimaeus received his physical sight, he saw with his eyes what his heart had already seen— Jesus was the Savior. From that point on, he followed him “on the way.”
Of all the many dangers in this life, hardly any are more dangerous than asking Jesus merely to improve the life we already have rather than asking him to give us the life for which we were created.
Typically, we want Jesus to wave a wand and fix our problems. But he intends to open our eyes to the wonder of who he is and what he offers to those who follow him.
Unlike Butch, Jesus’ question comes to us at an infinitely deeper level. Like Bartimaeus, we should consider asking, “Let me see you for who you really are. Let me see what really matters. Let me follow you.”
Prayer: Jesus! Open my eyes to understand you and your ways.