That I may see again
Blind Bartimaeus
Bartimaeus sits where the blind always sit, at the edge of the road, begging. He cannot see Jesus coming, but he hears the crowd change, and that is enough. He starts to shout, and when they tell him to hush he only shouts louder, because a blind man learns that his voice is the one thing he still owns. Jesus stops. Call him. And the question Jesus asks is almost startling in its openness: what do you want me to do for you? A blind beggar could ask for many things — money, safety, a better corner. What he asks for is the thing underneath all the others. Rabboni, that I may see again. Notice the again. He had not always been blind; there was a time he could see, and the darkness came later and took it. He is not asking for something new so much as the return of something lost. And when the sight comes back, he does not gather his cloak and go home to the old corner. He follows Jesus down the road. Recovered sight, the moment it is given, becomes a direction.
“Rabboni, that I may see again.”
— Blind Bartimaeus — Mark 10:51 (WEB)
“Your faith has made you well. Immediately he received his sight, and followed Jesus in the way.”
This is the turn within disorientation, where the long blindness begins to lift. The wilderness is, in large part, a loss of sight — of God, of the way, of the point. The phase asks you to name that honestly and to make the beggar's bold cry: not for the corner improved, but for the eyes opened, that you might see again and follow.
Look at what the long wilderness has dimmed in you: your sense of God, your read of the way forward, your hold on what any of it still means. Most of the wandering is a slow going-blind, by degrees, until you beg at the edge of the road because you can no longer find the road. Not all at once, but by degrees: the sense of God dims, the way forward greys over, the meaning of things you once saw plainly fogs and then is gone.
And the temptation, when help finally comes near, is to ask for the wrong thing — to ask for the corner improved rather than the eyes opened, for circumstances rearranged rather than sight restored. Beg instead for the deeper gift. Make Bartimaeus's prayer your own: Lord, that I may see again. And when the seeing returns, let it become a direction, sending you not back to the old dark but forward, behind Him on the road. Bartimaeus asks for the deeper thing, and it is the prayer that turns disorientation toward its dawn. Not first a changed life, but the ability to see again — to see God, to see the way, to see that any of it means something after all.
And the proof that the sight is real is where it sends you. He did not blink in the new light and shuffle back to the familiar dark. He fell in behind Jesus on the road. Sight that does not lead to following was never the sight worth asking for.
The Church climbing out of disorientation needs, before any program or strategy, to see again, to recover the vision of God the wilderness dimmed and the sense of the way it lost. The going-blind has happened by degrees across whole movements and traditions, until the Body begs at the edge of the road for a better corner and misses the deeper gift. The cry that turns the long blindness toward dawn is Bartimaeus's: opened eyes. When the LORD restores the Church's sight, it becomes a direction, sending the Body down the road after Christ rather than back to the old ways it knew. Western and global Christianity do not need their circumstances merely rearranged. They need to see, and to follow what they see.
Sight can be lost and given back, but the One who restores it does not change. When the wilderness has shaken away every clear thing you thought you saw, what cannot be shaken is the Lord who stops on the road for a blind man's cry and opens his eyes. The Giver remains when the darkness is removed.
- What has my wilderness made me blind to that I once saw plainly?
- Am I begging for my corner improved, or for the deeper gift of sight?
- If my eyes were opened today, would I follow Him down the road or shuffle back to the old dark?
Lord, the long wilderness has dimmed my sight until I can no longer see You or the way. I will not be quiet about it. Rabboni, that I may see again. Open my eyes, and when they open, set my feet behind You on the road. Amen.