The power we have

Our choice to see and our choice to hope are powerful things. They converge and allow, I believe, the Holy Spirit to move within us more unencumbered than we were before we chose to see and hope. When we have open minds, when we seek the truth, when we’re willing to go through whatever is required to admit truth, ah! That is a potent thing in the hand of God!

Just look at our body language when we are seeking or looking to see! We are receptive. The same goes when we take our hope out for a spin. We are wide awake! We are in search of that right thing that will satisfy the hunger within us, the hunger that is the very image of God, inherent in every one of us, no matter skin color, religion, ethnicity, or gender. And when what we find without meets with and resonates with what we have within, we see!

Just looking for truth, just hoping and, I believe, “just” praying intensifies the already present force toward God, toward holiness, toward whole-ness for us all.

“I want to see,” Bartimaeus told Jesus, and it delighted Jesus. May we begin each day with that same powerful request.

Reflection

Compare your body language and spirit when you are angry and withdrawn with when you are hoping and looking for truth.

Prayer

Dear God, remind me each day to commit myself to seeing, to hoping. May I go out into the public squares of my family, my community, my world with the same heart as Bartimaeus, yearning to see what is true, what is you. This force I can help put into action unites, welcomes, and does not worry that you do not have the power to grant us sight. Lord, I want to see!