“Take heart; rise, he is calling you. And throwing off his cloak he sprang up and came to Jesus. And Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” (Mark 10 49-51, RSV-2CE)
The above quote from the story of healing the blind man Bartimeus in the Gospel of Mark, chapter 10 is my go to any time anyone asks me for my favorite Bible verse, particularly the first line: “take heart; rise, he is calling you.” It gave me a sense of purpose and pride—Jesus Himself was calling me, and I better not delay. And I had no fear of falling weary, for I was ready to “take heart” that it was the Lord’s mission that I was on. Did you notice there was a lot of “I’s in those last few sentences?”
A few weeks go, as I sat at Mass with my four kids constantly whispering questions or falling off the kneeler that was used as a balance beam in the case of my two-year-old, I was elated to hear this favorite verse in the Gospel for that Sunday. But as I settled in to listen to Father’s homily, I noticed that this verse was about to go in a very different direction than what I usually focused on, and I was about to get a beautiful lesson.
Rather than focusing on verse 49 (which in my mind held all the action), Father pointed to what comes after. Yes, Bartimeus gets up and goes to Jesus, but then Jesus immediately says, “What do you want me to do for you?” A simple enough question, but, as Father pointed out, it’s not a question I often let Jesus ask of me. All this time I was picturing myself as Bartimeus, being called by Jesus to come to Him, but that’s as far as I took it. Not only had I often failed to “spring up” and run to Jesus in prayer, when I did, I never paused to let Jesus ask me what it is He could do for me.
Prayer time has always been a struggle for me. When I was younger, it was boring. When I was in college, I knew best and spent much of my prayer time reciting to the Lord what I was going to do to improve and what I wanted to accomplish. And now in the trenches of motherhood, I struggle to find the focus—either due to the distractions of work and noisy children or simply due to not being able to turn off the never ending to-do list running in my brain. But as I listened to Father that Sunday morning, it hit me. What I need is to “spring up” and run myself to Jesus. And before telling him all the things I am ready to do, I need to pause and let Him ask me what He can do for me.
But why can’t we just start prayer by blurting it all out—asking Him right away for patience, for strength, for a break? Because we were created for love and by God’s love. Love is reciprocal and if we are having a one way conversation, simply stating what we need with expectation, we do not give God the opportunity to love us as He wants. He wants us to be open to Him, to let Him work in us. And because our God is a God of small steps that create great miracles. He entered the world a small, tiny baby, but shook humanity to its core in a mere 33 years. When we start prayer with a pause for the Lord to initiate His love to us, He shakes us to our core and it reaffirms what I always felt in verse 49: we are on HIS mission. We do not make our own miracles. We are here for Him.
