CHRISTIAN VIEWPOINT: What would I ask for if Jesus offered me anything?
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Kay, the spiritual director at the silent retreat I attended at the Bield in Perthshire back in 2015, gave me a Bible passage to consider.
It described Bartimaeus, a man who was blind, sitting on the edge of the crowd, calling out for help to Jesus who was passing by. Hearing, Jesus asked him: ‘What do you want me to do for you?’
‘Go away and think how you’d reply if Jesus said something like that to you,’ Kay told me.
What would I ask for? I often felt as much on the edge as was Bartimaeus.
I wanted to know I was loved, that I was OK. I wanted to give being John Dempster my very best shot. I wanted to be free of parental expectations I felt I could never match. I would reply to Jesus: ‘I want to be my authentic self.’
The other day I was talking to Emma, a church youth leader.
She was concerned about the message young people are incessantly hearing: ‘Find your own truth! (Which means something like ‘Believe in the things you yourself have found to be freeing’ or ‘find your authentic self’).
This search for authenticity is confusing. So many voices seek to influence us. Some of us are damaged emotionally, and cower behind walls of fear. Some of us feel restricted by controlling habits and addictions. Is this mess, this pain, all there is?
How can we talk positively about being our true selves if we don’t even like ourselves?
Emma points her young people to an absolute truth, a truth true for everyone. ‘I am the Truth,’ said Jesus, in part meaning something like this: ‘Come to me! Find your identity and authenticity in me. Learn from me the best way of living, as an apprentice learns from a master craftsperson.’
As we enter this liberating apprenticeship, things in our lives which already reflect the character of Jesus will be enhanced.
We will ruefully recognise the shadow in us which diminishes ourselves and others, but will be freed from it, and will not live out of dark places.
Bartimaeus (the name means ‘Son of Timaeus’) asked Jesus to heal his blindness. Jesus did.
Back there at the Bield, it struck me that from that day on Bartimaeus would be recognised not simply as his father’s son, but as the man whom Jesus healed.
I had tried so hard, as my parents’ child, to live out their dream for me, even after their death. But at the Bield, I realised that I’d been freed from dear mum and dad’s agenda, and that God’s dream for me did not restrict me, but empowered me to be my truest self.
