In Mark chapter 10, Jesus asked the same question twice, once to James and John, two of his closest friends, and once to a blind beggar.
“What do you want me to do for you?” (verse 36, 51)
1. Peter and John’s answer:
“Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.”
2. The blind beggar’s answer:
“Rabbi, I want to see.”
Jesus’ response:
1. To Peter and John:
38 “You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said. “Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?”
39 “We can,” they answered.
Jesus said to them, “You will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with, 40 but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared.”
2. To the blind beggar:
52 “Go,” said Jesus, “your faith has healed you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road.
My answer to that question? (noting frankly that it’s not yet 6:30am in the morning, while I’m alert and still trying to be a good boy [I’m just being honest]):
One thing I ask from the Lord,
this only do I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life,
to gaze on the beauty of the Lord
and to seek him in his temple. — Psalm 27:4
I seriously do think Jesus wants to know what we want today. Ask, seek, knock, he says. (Matthew 7:7-8)
Try it. Truthfully, He is not far from any one of us. In Him alone do we live and move and have our being…
