Reflection on What We Want God to Do

Then Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “My teacher, let me see again.” Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way. (See Mark 10:46-52 NRSV).

This past week one of the greatest teachers of contemplative and centering prayer Thomas Keating went to his eternal rest. The theme of letting go of our false sense of self by accepting then letting go of all the things that possess us, so that we can be with God for no other reason than God alone; was something that Thomas Keating lived into and shared with others.

Jesus asked the man who was blind as well as all of us, “what do you want me to do for you?” Many of us have become blind to what is within us, and what is going on around us. All of us have something that we want. Are we so full of the little things that we want, that we do not see what it is we really want from God?

Much of our spiritual blindness is because God has already revealed God’s Self to us. God is revealing God’s Self to us, in the here and now. The desires of our hearts, the longing for more than what is on the surface, comes from God’s longing for us. The question to be asked is, are we paying attention to God’s desire for us, in our desire for God?

In his book Open Mind, Open Heart, Thomas Keating wrote,

“The desire to go to God, consent to His presence within us, does not come from our initiative, but from the grace of God. We do not have to go anywhere to find God because He is already drawing us in a very conceivable way into union with Himself” (p.36).

God is offering us to enter into the contemplation of our relationship with God. It is a Mysticism with its own wonder, with no conclusion to be drawn by anything else, except faith and trust in God’s grace. It is the new sight that Jesus restores for us when we answer His question “what do you want me to do for you?”

“Let is open our eyes to the light that comes from God, and our ears to the voice that comes from Heaven that every day calls out this charge: If today you hear God’s voice, do not harden your hearts” (The Rule of St. Benedict in English, p.15-16).

What do you want Jesus to do for you?

Amen.

Peace be with all who enter here.

Brother Anselm Philip King-Lowe, OSB

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