HOW BADLY DO YOU WANT WHAT YOU WANT?

 

He shouted even louder, “I want to see!”

Mark 10:51

I absolutely love this man named Bartimeus! He is a man who knows what he wants and is willing to jump any hurdles in his way to get at it! No wimpishly sitting back and wishing and waiting and whining for what he needs, he is willing to do whatever it takes to get what he needs! No hoping to be noticed! He makes sure he is noticed! Nobody’s “sit down and shut up” is going to stop him! For him it’s “jump up, shout and be sure you’re heard.” He was tired of being blind. He desperately wanted to see! He had a burning faith in Jesus and he would not be held back either by his own cowardly reluctance or the immense obstacles others throw in front of him!

It is important to notice the words of Jesus here! These same words are often used in the miracle stories of the gospels. Jesus does not say, “Go! I have healed you!” Rather he says to Bartimeus, “Go your faith has healed you!” In fact, there are failed healing stories in the gospel where Jesus could not work any miracles because of a person’s lack of faith.  It takes two for a miracle healing – the power of God and the faith of the one who asks for healing.

The one necessary ingredient, then, in all healing miracles is the strong belief that healing is possible. This strong faith triggers an abnormal acceleration of natural healing processes. This is true of all the healing shrines in all religions – it is the firm faith of the believer that unleashes God’s healing power.

Bartimeus can teach us something. Psalm 119 says, “God hates half-heartedness!” Very often we are ambivalent about what we say we want. Often, we hang onto our infirmities and losses because they give us convenient excuses for not getting on in life and doing the hard things involved in making it work. We say we want things to be different, but in reality, we are not so sure! Often, we actually do not want things to change all that much.

I am sure Batimeus thought twice about whether he really wanted to see because he knew that when he was able to see he had to quit feeling sorry for himself, he had to give up depending on alms as a beggar and had to get a job for the first time in his life!

Some people wallow in grief for years over the loss of a spouse and feel that they cannot go on. They say they would like to get over it, but sometimes in reality, they are scared of having to do the changing they would have to do to build a new life, another life, a scary new life on their own! It’s often safer to stay stuck than to change! Many unhappy people that I run into as a priest will say they want their lives to be different, but in reality they really don’t want it all that much! In truth, it’s easier for them to to stay stuck! Bartimeus could teach them a lot today about getting up from their self-pity and get on with living! Yes, it is damned hard to move past grief, but the alternatives to moving on end up being even harder!

Miracles are possible in our lives, but miracles are different from magic! Magic is about sitting around wishing somebody else would make things happen to make us all better. Magic is waiting for a fairy godmother to come and wave her magic wand over us so we don’t have to do anything. For a miracle to happen, like Bartimeus, we have to get up, throw away the security blankets that we have wrapped ourselves in and be clear about what we want and be willing to go get it! We have to override the naysayer in our own heads and the naysayers who line to roads of our life. Wishing and magic waits for others to fix us. Really wanting something makes us take action. God is willing to help those who are willing to help themselves.  Yes, we need to help the helpless, but we also need to encourage those who can help themselves to help themselves!

Friends! We can begin to work miracles in own lives by really wanting something different and really believing that what we want is possible, like Bartimeus. As Dale Carnegie once wrote, “Believe that you will succeed…believe it firmly and you will do what is necessary to bring it to success.”  Jesus it put it this way to Bartimeus, “Your faith has healed you!”

Bartimeus’ challenge for us today is to grab the bull by the horns and take responsibility for ourselves and our futures. To do that we must be able to stand up to whatever part of a lazy coward that might live within us and discipline ourselves to do hard things for our own good. This challenge can best be summed up in four of my favorite quotes. The first two are from George Bernard Shaw. I use them all the time. The reason I like them is they challenge a common belief that was popular when I was growing up and a belief that I see lived out around me each and every day. That belief is that "life is something that happens to you and all you can do is make the most of it.” This belief creates "victims" who are always blaming others for their condition or refusing to do the hard things necessary to find a way out of their debilitating situation.     

Shaw challenges that belief, first of all, when he said, "This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy." In another place, Shaw said it more succinctly. "Life," he said, "is not about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself."

Pope John Paul II agreed when he said, "All formation is ultimately self-formation." Bob Dylan had his own way of saying it when he sang, "If you are not busy being born, you are busy dying."

Fellow Catholics, again Bartimeus’ challenge to all of us is to grab the bull by the horns and take responsibility for ourselves and the life we want. Bartimeus tells us not to go through life complaining from the back seat. Bartimeus tells us to get behind the wheel and do something about what we don’t like in our lives and quit whining from the back seat!

What would you like to change in your life? How much time do you spend thinking about how much you dislike it and whining about it to other people who will listen? If you want something to change in your life, say it with Bartimeus, and say it with conviction, "I want to see!" Let's hear it! What do you want? "I want to see!"