What Do You Want?

Erma Bombeck once told how she was sitting in church when a small child turned around and began to smile at the people behind her. Smiling. Doing nothing else. Suddenly the mother whispered sharply, “Stop that smiling… you’re in church.”

Why did you come to church today?

Why are you here?

What do you want?

I don’t know what’s going on in your life—the concerns you face, the worries pressing on you. But I do know this: Jesus still asks, “What do you want Me to do for you?”

There are churches where you can come as you are and leave as you were. Did you come today with a need or a desire? Will you leave in the same condition you walked in?

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The Text

Mark 10:46–52 tells of blind Bartimaeus:

> And they came to Jericho: and as he went out of Jericho with his disciples and a great number of people, blind Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, sat by the highway side begging… And Jesus stood still, and commanded him to be called… And Jesus answered and said unto him, What wilt thou that I should do unto thee? The blind man said unto him, Lord, that I might receive my sight. And Jesus said unto him, Go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole. And immediately he received his sight, and followed Jesus in the way.

It’s a familiar story. And when we hear something familiar we’re tempted to put our minds in neutral and think, I’ve heard all this before. But the Spirit wants to speak afresh today.

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Strange Questions?

I enjoy listening to commentators on TV. Years ago when Dallas Cowboys quarterback Danny White fumbled, the announcer said helpfully, “That’s something they were hoping to avoid.”

We ask obvious questions all the time:

To someone with an arm in a cast: “Did you hurt your arm?”

After a funeral: “Is Ned dead?”

A first-grade teacher tells her class, “Raise your hand if you need to go to the bathroom,” and a little boy asks, “How will that help?”

Silly questions. And yet Jesus sometimes seems to ask the most obvious questions of all.

Here is Bartimaeus—blind. He cries, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus stops, calls him over, and asks, “What do you want Me to do for you?”

Isn’t it obvious?

Remember the man at the pool of Bethesda who had been crippled for 38 years? Jesus asked him, “Do you want to be healed?” Surely the answer is self-evident.

But the Lord never asks a foolish question. He doesn’t need information. He already knew Bartimaeus’ need even better than Bartimaeus did. Jesus asks to draw out faith, to probe the heart, to refine the desire.

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The Cry of Bartimaeus

Picture the scene. Bartimaeus is sitting in his usual spot when he hears unusual commotion. “What’s happening?”

“Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.”

Can you imagine the leap of his heart? He begins to cry out loudly—literally to scream—“Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” People try to hush him, but he shouts all the more.

Jesus stops. The crowd parts. The Master calls him forward.

And then comes the question that still echoes:

“What do you want Me to do for you?”

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Prayer Is Wrestling

That question lies at the heart of prayer. Prayer is not a ritual; it is a personal encounter, even a wrestling match, with the living God.

Paul wrote in Romans 15:30, “Strive together with me in your prayers.” The word strive means wrestle. Think of Jacob at the river Jabbok, wrestling until dawn. His greatest struggle wasn’t resisting the devil. It was surrendering to God—yielding to what God wanted to do in him.

My hardest battles in prayer aren’t about saying no to Satan. They’re about saying yes to God.

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Now let’s walk through three life-shaping questions that rise from Jesus’ encounter with Bartimaeus.

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1. What Do You Want Jesus to Do for You?

If God already knows our needs (and He does), why ask? For the same reason He asked Jacob, “What is your name?”—to draw out confession and clarity.

Jacob had to say, “My name is Jacob—supplanter, trickster.”

Bartimaeus had to say, “Lord, I want to see.”

You and I must name our deepest need.

Persistent asking matters. Jesus told parables of the persistent widow and the midnight visitor to show that we keep on asking. Like a child waiting for a parent to change their mind, persistence reveals how much we care.

But Jesus’ question also tests whether we really want what we say we want. The lame man at Bethesda might have enjoyed the security of being cared for. Healing would mean responsibility, work, change. Sometimes we prefer the comfort of spiritual illness to the challenge of spiritual health.