“I want to see.”

I like to imagine Bartimaeus uttering these four words with bold confidence. I picture him eager and ready for the question Jesus posed, as if he had been waiting his entire life for this moment. 

What if, after Jesus asked, “What do you want me to do for you?”, Bartimaeus had answered, “I don’t know”? How would things have unfolded in Jericho that day if the blind man held back, doubted himself or deferred to Jesus?

Naming what we want can be difficult. Perhaps we have a complicated relationship with desire and have learned to suppress our deepest longings. Or maybe we question whether our wishes are aligned with God’s will. When we do summon the courage to give shape and voice to a specific desire, we often qualify it in prayer or conversation with phrases like, “if it is your plan for me, Lord.”

In Bartimaeus, we have a model of a human who took full ownership of what he wanted. To stand out in the crowd, he shouted for Jesus. In fact, others rebuked Bartimaeus for being disruptive. Face to face with Jesus, he answered the question specifically and without qualification. In Mark 10:52, we learn that Jesus responded to the boldness of Bartimaeus by restoring his sight immediately.

I believe Jesus asks Bartimaeus the question to show us how much he cares about what we want. He wants us to name our desires and come to him with them. At times we may struggle with uncovering them or owning them, but calling out to Jesus from wherever we are will bring us closer to being able to confidently answer, “What do you want me to do for you?”