Daily Journal: 17 December

If Only

People don’t know what you carry in your heart, but God sees your 'if only'.

There is a beautiful story of a blind man who heard Jesus was near him. He was sitting on the roadside, begging, dirty and disadvantaged. He had at one time been able to see. He had at one time been part of his community. Now he sat, desperate, day after day. Sightless to others, ‘that blind beggar’; marginalised and inconsequential. Yet he burned with a desire to see again and to have his life turn around.

If only.

I love the wording in this story that describes his heart and his attitude.

Mark 10:46-52 (NET)

They came to Jericho. As Jesus and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus the son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the road. When he heard that it was Jesus the Nazarene, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David [c], have mercy [d] on me!” Many scolded [e] him to get him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” So they called the blind man and said to him, “Have courage! Get up! He is calling you.” He threw off his cloak, jumped up, and came to Jesus. Then Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man replied, “Rabbi, let me see again”[j]. Jesus said to him, “Go, your faith has healed you.” Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the road.

[c] Jesus was more than a Nazarene to this blind person, who saw quite well that Jesus was Son of David. There was a tradition in Judaism that the Son of David (Solomon) had great powers of healing

[d] Have mercy on me is a request for healing. It is not owed the man. He simply asks for God’s kind grace.

[e] Or “rebuked.” The crowd’s view was that surely Jesus would not be bothered with someone as unimportant as a blind beggar.

[j] “that I may see [again].” The phrase can be rendered as an imperative of request, “Please, give me sight.” Since the man is not noted as having been blind from birth (as the man in John 9 was) it is likely the request is to receive back the sight he once had.

When we have limitations and challenges in life, don’t we pray, constantly, that God will intervene in some way? That, if only, God would turn things around. Bartimaeus was just the same. He desperately wanted to see again. I can imagine how many times a day he remembered what it was like to see, what his life used to be like, desperately wishing for his sight again, praying over and over, Lord, if you are real, if you love me, if you see me at all, please give me back my sight and let me live a life a productive life again. I can imagine what a burden he felt he was. How unfulfilled and disparate he felt.

When Jesus called, Bartimaeus threw his cloak aside and jumped up. Ready! His desperation had not made him defeated, it fueled his immediate response. He had not lost hope. Somehow. His ‘if only’ became, ‘at last!’

Isaiah 65:1 (NLT)

The Lord says, “I was ready to respond, but no one asked for help. I was ready to be found, but no one was looking for me. I said, ‘Here I am, here I am!’ to a nation that did not call on my name.

But Bartimaeus did. He wouldn’t be shouted down. He believed. Bartimaeus was named. He wasn’t just ‘that blind beggar'. God saw him and knew him.

Psalm 86:5 (NLT)

O Lord, you are so good, so ready to forgive, so full of unfailing love for all who ask for your help.

I am seen. You are seen. Let us have the constant cry for mercy and help that Bartimaeus did, being hopeful and asking, immediately ready to respond when Jesus calls.