"Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, 'What do you want?'"
John 1:38 (NIV)
We ask questions we already know how to answer. Jesus turns and asks two men a simple, direct question. "What do you want?" is not complicated, yet it is rarely easy to answer honestly. Most of us have practiced answers ready for God long before He asks.
The question does not ask what you believe yet. Jesus does not ask the two disciples for a statement of faith. He asks about desire, about the thing pulling them to follow Him. Underneath our polished church answers is often a rawer question we avoid facing.
Jeremiah heard this same kind of invitation centuries earlier. In Jeremiah 29, God promises an exiled people they will find Him seeking Him fully. That promise was not meant for people with tidy, sorted-out motives. It was for people still trying to name what they actually wanted.
We know this place, the pause before an honest answer. Every one of us has stood in front of God rehearsing a safer reply. The church has always wrestled with wanting the right answer more than the true one. Godseekers is being formed to tell the truth, not perform it.
Stop pretending you already know your own answer. Sit with the question honestly before you reach for a rehearsed one. Tell Jesus the true thing you want, even if it embarrasses you. He is not asking to trap you, He is asking to meet you.
Godseekers, you do not need a polished answer to come near Him. Bring the real question, the real want, the real ache you carry. Jesus already turned around and He is already waiting for your answer. Come and tell Him today what you have been afraid to say.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, You already know every true thing we are still afraid to say. Thank You for turning toward us even before our answers are ready. Forgive us for offering rehearsed words instead of honest ones. Meet us in the real question we have been avoiding this week. We bring You our actual want, not our approved one. In Jesus' name, Amen.
Personal Reflection
- What is the honest answer you have been avoiding when God asks what you want?
- Where does your church family need more honesty instead of rehearsed answers?
Step of Faith
Today, write down the honest answer to Jesus' question in one sentence. Do not soften it or make it sound spiritual. Keep it somewhere you will see it this week. Let it remind you that God wants the true answer, not the polished one.
