WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO FOR YOU
In Matt 20:29-34, we see two blind men crying out to Jesus for mercy. His question to them (‘What do you want me to do for you?‘) led to the honest answer, ‘Lord, we want our sight.’ These two men received a miraculous gift of healing and followed Jesus as a result. They have much to teach us about honest, faith-filled, direct asking and about expectation and excitement in their encounter with Jesus.
So often, we find the many positive promises about prayer in the Bible too good to be true (see Matt 7:7-8, John 14:13-14, John 16:23-24, 1 John 5:14-15). Yet James reminds us that ‘you do not have because you do not ask God.’ (James 4:2) Our view of God will determine how we approach Him. Jesus encouraged us to see Him as a heavenly Father who longs to give good gifts to His children (Matt 7:11, Luke 11:13) and taught that it is more blessed to give than receive. When we see God’s delight in answering prayer and understand that He does not reproach us for asking directly and with simple faith for the things we need (as we are taught to do in the Lord’s Prayer), we can approach God with confidence (see Heb 4:15).
The two men recognised Jesus as Lord and as the Son of David, God’s chosen one. Their request for mercy showed they realised their need of Jesus. Cries for mercy are always heard by God (see Ps 116:1-2, Ps 18:6, Ps 28:6, Ps 31:22), no matter where we are (in the belly of a fish as Jonah was, in a fiery furnace as Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were or in the lions’ den as Daniel was). We can have confidence in approaching God and can pour out the desires of our hearts to Him, secure in the knowledge that He loves us and longs to give good gifts to us (see James 1:17) Many of us live with the attitude ‘blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.’ This is not a Biblical view, for those who hope in the Lord shall lack no good thing and will not be disappointed (Ps 25:3). We need to be like these two men, approaching Jesus with honesty, simplicity, faith and expectancy.
