What Do You Want Him to Do?
Imagine if Jesus walked up to you and asked you what you wanted Him to do for you? How would you respond? What would you ask Jesus to do? Even if you were caught off guard, you would likely not do like many of us do when we pray and give some vague, spiritual-sounding gobbledegook of a request. While Luke 18 doesn’t use the word prayer, it certainly gives us some insight in that regard.
Luke 18 records Jesus traveling toward Jericho, on his way to meet Zaccheus. As Jesus approached the city, he encountered a blind man who was begging beside the road. As usual, Jesus’ travels attracted a herd of onlookers. The commotion caused the blind man to inquire what was happening. Some members of the crowd informed him that Jesus was passing by. Upon hearing this the man cried out: “Jesus, So of David, have mercy on me!” (Luke 18:38). Some members of the crowd tried to silence the blind man’s cries but he would not be deterred and continued to try out for Jesus’ help.
In spite of the mass of people surrounding him, Jesus hears the man’s pleas for help and brings the man forward for a conversation. Despite the man’s need being perfectly obvious to the Son of God and even to the crowd around him Jesus does something very unexpected. He asks the man what he wants. And in so doing, Jesus brings some correction to his prayer life. His prayer sounds to me like a perfectly efficacious prayer. The blind man asks Jesus to have mercy on him. What could be wrong with this? What could be lacking? Well, it seems, a great deal.
When Jesus asks the man what he wants, he says, Lord, I want to regain my sight.” While it might seem obvious to us and to everyone involved, Jesus still drew out of the man a specific request of what he wanted Jesus to do. Only then did Jesus heal the man: “And Jesus said to him, 'Receive your sight; your faith has made you well.’ (Luke 18:42). Certainly Jesus could have healed the man without this specific request. But for some reason he chose to draw the answer out of the man. Why?
Faith. Jesus wanted the man to have the faith to make a specific request. If you aren’t praying specifically you're wasting your time. Perhaps that’s stating the matter a little too strongly but you get the point. Admittedly, there is value in seeking God in prayer no matter how vague and general our prayers are; God loves to hear from his children. Even so, without specificity, prayer misses the mark.
When we pray in generalities it is because we lack the faith to be specific. Sometimes we are worried about sounding crazy. If we want Jesus to do something big, we don’t want others to think we are out of our minds. Great requests are not the sign of weak minds but of strong faith. Other times we are worried that we might be disappointed if we pray specifically. If we ask specifically and God says, “no” we don’t want to deal with the disappointment. Amazingly enough, God’s “no” often protects us from something that is not for our good. Don’t let these fears keep you from praying specifically.
Start praying specifically today and you might be amazed at what you begin to see God do and how you begin to see your faith grow.