Aisle 13 and What Do You Want?
"What do you want?"
These four words compose one of life's scariest questions. But it's a crucial and ongoing inquiry for those courageously committed to earthly excellence and eternal significance.
Two brothers made a request of Jesus who responded by asking, "What do you want?" They got a "no" and a heart check.
A blind man came to Jesus who questioned, "What do you want?" He got a yes -- and a life transformed!
A lady in Aisle 13 was willing to answer, "What do you want?" and it became an opportunity for ministry both to her and the stranger who asked.
Listen in to discover why asking yourself this question is critical.
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Transcript
What do two brothers, a grocery store aisle, a blind man, and a question Jesus asked possibly have to do with you?
Speaker A:Stay tuned.
Speaker A:You're going to find out today if.
Speaker B:Your desire is to become spiritually stronger, emotionally healthier, and relationally smarter, you're at the right place.
Speaker B:Speaker and writer Stephanie Smith inspires and equips you to achieve these three key aims.
Speaker B:If you are a parent, you also learn how to raise empowered kids ready for adulthood.
Speaker B:Let's get started.
Speaker A:Do you know that questions are one of the most powerful tools that you can use in a relationship or in a position of leadership when you are trying to communicate with your team, your division, your organization?
Speaker A:See what I did there?
Speaker A:I asked you a question.
Speaker A:Well, we are going to talk about one of life's four essential questions today, but before I start diving into that, I just want to say, if you haven't subscribed, go ahead, hit that subscribe button.
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Speaker A:And those reviews are not only helpful for me to know what's resonating with you, the listener, but it does also help other people to and the algorithms that be to promote the podcast so people know, hey, this is something actually worth listening to.
Speaker A:And if you are looking for help for your parents, for the women in your area, for the moms and dad in your church, in your organization, in your Christian school, your homeschool group, check out my website and book me to come and to share.
Speaker A:I do traditional women's events, conferences, retreats, keynotes, and I also do parenting conferences.
Speaker A:So make sure to check that out.
Speaker A:All right, let's go back to unpacking this question.
Speaker A:And what in the world is this connection between two brothers, a blind man, aisle 13 and the question Jesus asked.
Speaker A:Well, first, let's talk about questions.
Speaker A:Questions are one of the most powerful relational and communication techniques that you can use because they create an open loop in the brain.
Speaker A:And brains do not like open loops.
Speaker A:They like closed loops.
Speaker A:They want resolution.
Speaker A:They want things to make sense.
Speaker A:The brain wants answers.
Speaker A:So when you are asked a question, your brain automatically starts seeking for a response or an answer.
Speaker A:And sometimes if you want someone to think about something, then the powerful tool that you can use is just to pose a question to them and then walk off.
Speaker A:Now, I Don't ever want to provide techniques that are construed to be manipulated.
Speaker A:This is not about manipulation.
Speaker A:It's not about verbally boxing somebody into a corner and then turning around and walking off, you know, leaving there kind of shaking that.
Speaker A:That's not the point of that.
Speaker A:And if you're listening to this podcast, I just know you're not that kind of person anyway.
Speaker A:But it can be a way to introduce an idea to get someone thinking.
Speaker A:And by not providing the opportunity for them to respond in the moment, then it kind of sets them up where they have to kind of think about that.
Speaker A:Even if they don't want to think about it, the brain is still going to think about that because it's going to want to come up with an answer.
Speaker A:And, you know, once we've answered something, we then have an emotional investment in our response and it becomes a lot harder to give it up.
Speaker A:And that's one of the reasons, especially if you are introducing something that, you know, might be met with defensiveness or somebody's going to respond, maybe they have a tendency to respond in a way off the cuff, but without thinking, then you might just set that up in such a way that you can ask that question, and then you can just kind of have an exit strategy that doesn't feel weird or manipulative.
Speaker A:And that's going to give.
Speaker A:Create the opportunity for them to take time to think about their response, and then maybe they might come up with a better response than they did initially.
Speaker A:So that's kind of a freebie.
Speaker A:That's kind of a technique there.
Speaker A:It's a good communication technique.
Speaker A:You don't want to overdo it because eventually somebody can kind of catch on if you overdo that.
Speaker A:And then they can become resistant to any question that you ask.
Speaker A:So use it sparingly.
Speaker A:I think it's fascinating to look at the questions that God asks us and that Jesus asked people when they.
Speaker A:When he was here on earth in bodily form.
Speaker A:I also think it's interesting the questions that people asked Jesus.
Speaker A:And in the Gospel of mark and chapter 10, there is an example of both of these things happening in the.
Speaker A:The first example in verse 36, James and John, two of Jesus, two of the 12 disciples of Jesus.
Speaker A:These were two brothers.
Speaker A:They were the sons of somebody named Zebedee.
Speaker A:They were fishermen for a living.
Speaker A:And they come to Jesus and they say, what do you want?
Speaker A:We want you to do for us whatever we ask.
Speaker A:Okay, now think about that question for a minute.
Speaker A:I mean, what if your high school adult or even Middle school kid came to you and said, hey, mom, dad, you know what?
Speaker A:I just want you to do for me whatever I'm going to ask of you.
Speaker A:I doubt that you.
Speaker A:I hope your response would not be, sure, sure, just tell me what you want.
Speaker A:You're going to be going, let's just wait and see.
Speaker A:What is this exactly that you're wanting?
Speaker A:The fact that they phrase it in this way kind of clues us in that they have an idea that maybe Jesus isn't going to say yes to their request.
Speaker A:And he doesn't.
Speaker A:What he does is he responds with a question and it's, what do you want me to do for you?
Speaker A:In other words, what do you want?
Speaker A:That question is one of the most powerful questions that we can ask ourselves and need to be asking ourselves all through life.
Speaker A:It's not a one and done.
Speaker A:It's not a, okay, I've asked myself that question once.
Speaker A:Now I'm good for the rest of life.
Speaker A:No, no, no.
Speaker A:That is a question that mature, intentional people of growth ask themselves on an ongoing basis.
Speaker A:And the two answer, okay, well, here's the thing.
Speaker A:When you come into your power, one of us want to sit on your right and the other at your left.
Speaker A:Now, I am kind of curious if James and John had worked out which one was going to get the right and which one was going to get.
Speaker A:They don't specify that it's not.
Speaker A:They don't say, grant, that James is going to sit on the ride and John's going to get the left.
Speaker A:So I'm just wondering if they'd had that conversation and they kind of had an idea or if they had been arguing about that and couldn't decide, so they just decided that they would leave that up to Jesus and he could pick which one was going to be at the right and which one was going to be at the left.
Speaker A:Because culturally, to sit at the right hand was a more esteemed position than on the left side.
Speaker A:Both were still high levels of.
Speaker A:Represented high levels of power, but the right did have something more going for it.
Speaker A:And, and then Jesus goes on and, and he answers that by saying, basically, no, no can do.
Speaker A:That's.
Speaker A:That's not going to be.
Speaker A:You're not going to get what you want.
Speaker A:And then in this very same chapter, just a section later, we are taken to an entirely different place.
Speaker A:And this time someone comes to Jesus and it's a man named Bartimaeus, and he is blind.
Speaker A:And he comes to Jesus and Jesus asks him the very same question that Jesus had just earlier asked James and John, and he says, what do you want me to do for you?
Speaker A:What do you want?
Speaker A:Why does Jesus ask this question?
Speaker A:Isn't it obvious?
Speaker A:He's blind.
Speaker A:Jesus has been going around healing people.
Speaker A:Why does Jesus ask that?
Speaker A:There is within our design the desire to desire.
Speaker A:We are wired to want.
Speaker A:We are wired to desire.
Speaker A:Desire is not the result of sin.
Speaker A:Now, what we desire and how we go about getting our desires met can lead us into sin.
Speaker A:But the need to have desire is not the result of sin.
Speaker A:It's wired within us.
Speaker A:God desires things.
Speaker A:Jesus desires things.
Speaker A:Being made in God's image, we also have been wired for desire.
Speaker A:I understand that there are some religions that teach the height of maturity, the height of enlightenment, the height of human evolution, is to want nothing.
Speaker A:And I can understand the appeal to that, because here's the reality.
Speaker A:You cannot have desire without suffering, because all desires do not get met, not here on this earth.
Speaker A:And so to desire is also to be open to suffering, to pain and disappointment.
Speaker A:And that is something we don't desire, nor should we.
Speaker A:We should not be desirous of, of pain and suffering and disappointment just for the sake of pain, suffering, and disappointment.
Speaker A:There's something pathologically amiss if we find ourselves just wanting that for its own sake.
Speaker A:But if we are willing to put up with suffering, pain and disappointment, to risk suffering, pain and disappointment in pursuit of a desire, that's a whole different thing.
Speaker A:You know, we hear a lot today about follow your passion.
Speaker A:Especially, you know, we don't just say that to young people.
Speaker A:We say that to adults.
Speaker A:What's your passion?
Speaker A:You know, quit your job and go pursue your passion.
Speaker A:It's fascinating that the root of the word passion is actually suffering.
Speaker A:I wonder how our messages might change if we started saying, go follow your suffering.
Speaker A:But that's kind of going down a rabbit trail, just throwing that one in there.
Speaker A:But it is worth thinking about because, again, what does passion do?
Speaker A:Passion has to do with what we want, with what we desire.
Speaker A:But true desire also does open us up to suffering.
Speaker A:But it is only to the degree that we are willing to identify and give voice to our suffering and that we are able to grow in our design.
Speaker A:We have to be willing to identify what do we want.
Speaker A:That is something that makes us more fully human.
Speaker A:It makes us more fully alive the way that God has designed us to be.
Speaker A:God did not come the growth of a Christian is not to crush our desires and our wants and to get us to a point that we stop wanting.
Speaker A:It's just the opposite.
Speaker A:The Christian is the one who should have the greatest desires, the greatest wants, because we then are more in touch with God, who has tremendous desire, who desired so much for us to come into a relationship with him that he was willing to give up his, his only son, to allow his son to go through the passion of the cross to endure suffering.
Speaker A:Why?
Speaker A:Because of the result, because of what it was going to accomplish.
Speaker A:Because there was a desire that was bigger than the suffering.
Speaker A:Now, sometimes this is where Christians can get a little distracted or caught up in, in things that sound really good, but they're actually like Christian cop outs.
Speaker A:And that is when we just say things like, I just want God's will.
Speaker A:I just want whatever God wants.
Speaker A:That is a cop out sometimes.
Speaker A:Now hear me on this.
Speaker A:I am not saying that anytime that we say, I want God's will, I want to know what's best.
Speaker A:I don't mean that anytime.
Speaker A:And every time we do that, that we're copying out.
Speaker A:But here's the thing.
Speaker A:Sometimes it's a cop out because we're afraid to identify and express what we want.
Speaker A:Because again, why?
Speaker A:Well, there's more than one reason for that.
Speaker A:One is because it makes us more keenly aware that we might be disappointed.
Speaker A:It reminds us in a visceral way that we might have some suffering from either that we have to go through to get what we want or suffering because we know we don't always get what we want.
Speaker A:James and John didn't get what they wanted in the response that Jesus gave to them.
Speaker A:But what we want also reveals what's in our heart.
Speaker A:And so when Jesus asks James and John, well, what do you want?
Speaker A:He's asking them to reveal what's in their heart.
Speaker A:And what shows up is they're wanting power, they want superiority, they want a guarantee of outcomes that's going to put them in a nice secure spot that was not where their heart needed to be.
Speaker A:And they needed to express that in order for Jesus to be able to gently point out to them, fellas, you need to redirect your hearts here.
Speaker A:Later in that same chapter, when Jesus encounters Bartimaeus and he says, what do you want?
Speaker A:Bartimaeus is the one who, again, he needs to say for himself what he wants.
Speaker A:And he says to him, I want to see.
Speaker A:It's very simple.
Speaker A:It's very direct.
Speaker A:Teacher Rabboni, let me see again.
Speaker A:In four words, let me see again.
Speaker A:He is expressing a deep desire.
Speaker A:This isn't, hey, I have a little tweak in my life, you know, could you help me get a promotion?
Speaker A:Nothing wrong with that.
Speaker A:So I'm not dissing us wanting promotions, but I'm saying this man is blind.
Speaker A:And in this day and age, being blind was very much a just a curse into poverty for most people.
Speaker A:And also it could be an outcast socially in every way because it was often seen that, well, you must be blind because of sin.
Speaker A:This is like God's curse upon you.
Speaker A:And so it wasn't an inconvenience.
Speaker A:There were no Americans with Disabilities Act.
Speaker A:There were no social programs, there were no charities, There were no government programs that were there to help you in this position.
Speaker A:This man is asking for a whole new way of life.
Speaker A:Why does Jesus ask him that?
Speaker A:He needs to be able to identify this desire for himself.
Speaker A:What does this have to do with aisle 13 that I mentioned earlier?
Speaker A:I'm so glad you asked.
Speaker A:I'm going to answer that.
Speaker A:This past week, I had the privilege to attend a Christian writers conference.
Speaker A:And our mc, Linda Goldfarb, who is fantastic, by the way, you should look her up online.
Speaker A:She's an author, speaker, and, and does just marvelous things.
Speaker A:She's also an audio professional, audiobook narrator.
Speaker A:But she shared the story of one day, she's on her way to the store.
Speaker A:You know, it's one of those, hey, I'm gonna be, get in, get my milk, get out, you know, kind of trips.
Speaker A:Not the, hey, I'm going to wander down the aisles and see what kind of new olives they might have or, you know, nothing that.
Speaker A:It's like I am on a mission.
Speaker A:It's a milk mission.
Speaker A:Don't distract me with anything else.
Speaker A:And so she's trotting along and she's on her way to the, to the back of the store to go get the milk.
Speaker A:And she passes aisle 13 and she happens to glance down and she sees this lady.
Speaker A:She's a small in stature lady, and she's looking up at an item that's up on one of the top shelves.
Speaker A:And Linda, who's taller, can see that there is no way that this lady is going to be able to reach the item that she's looking for.
Speaker A:And Linda just has the prompting of the Holy Spirit to say, forget the milk for now.
Speaker A:You need to walk down there and offer her help, see what she needs.
Speaker A:And so Linda does.
Speaker A:She walks down there and the lady says, well, yeah, I need that ingredient up there for my husband's favorite meal.
Speaker A:And I can't reach it.
Speaker A:And Linda gets it for her and brings it down.
Speaker A:And the lady Goes on.
Speaker A:And she says, thank you so much.
Speaker A:He died last week.
Speaker A:And this lady is in the store, and she's wanting to prepare her husband's favorite meal, her.
Speaker A:Her newly deceased husband favorite meal, as a way to remember him, as a way to still feel this connection.
Speaker A:And I don't know if Linda hadn't walked down there, if somebody else would have walked down there, or the lady would have left without it, or if she would have tracked down an employee at the store to come.
Speaker A:And I don't know how all those other things would have turned out.
Speaker A:But I do know this.
Speaker A:Linda would have missed the opportunity to help meet this need.
Speaker A:She would have missed this opportunity to grow by setting aside her own mission, by taking some time out of her day that was already packed to minister to this woman.
Speaker A:And that is important for us to be willing to stop and to walk down those aisle 13s when we see somebody else who has a need.
Speaker A:And that was a lot of what we focused on at the conference this week and the encouragement to be willing to look for those aisle 13 moments when we could stop and help and be present for someone else, whether that was in a practical way or that was just in a way of listening and encouragement.
Speaker A:And later in the week after telling us that story, Linda asked, okay, who here this week has had an aisle 13 moment?
Speaker A:And we had dozens, hundreds.
Speaker A:I'm not even sure how many hands that went up in that auditorium, but I want to flip that script for just a minute to realize what made that aisle 13 moment possible was Linda's willingness to walk down there and offer help.
Speaker A:But it was also required that the lady that was there express her need.
Speaker A:She had to be willing to say, that is what I want.
Speaker A:And you know what?
Speaker A:It's only when we are willing to point to things that we can't reach, that we can't get ourselves, that we need God.
Speaker A:We need someone else to get for us, to help us reach, to help us obtain, that we have the humility to admit our need, that it even has the possibility of being met.
Speaker A:There were many other people in Jesus day who were blind, that didn't come to Jesus, that didn't say, let me see again.
Speaker A:So I want to encourage you, start today and identify, what do you want?
Speaker A:What do you want in your personal growth?
Speaker A:Growing in your character, growing in your skills?
Speaker A:What do you want in the way of opportunities?
Speaker A:Maybe you have been faithfully growing in your skills and.
Speaker A:And developing abilities, and you've learned and you've grown, and you.
Speaker A:You've Acquired knowledge and skills, and now you're like, God, I want opportunities to do something with this.
Speaker A:What opportunities do you want?
Speaker A:Are you willing to give voice to those?
Speaker A:To God?
Speaker A:To somebody else?
Speaker A:What do you want in your relationships?
Speaker A:What do you want from God?
Speaker A:What do you want?
Speaker A:Now it might be that if you're.
Speaker A:When you're really honest, you might kind of go, oops, I sound a little bit more like James and John here.
Speaker A:Gosh, you know, that's kind of a heart check here.
Speaker A:But that's not because they wanted something big.
Speaker A:They.
Speaker A:They wanted something because they weren't aligned with what God was wanting.
Speaker A:But what Bartimaeus wanted was huge.
Speaker A:I mean, let me see again, heal my eyes.
Speaker A: go from being blind to having: Speaker A:That's.
Speaker A:That's a pretty big deal.
Speaker A:That's.
Speaker A:That's a big ask.
Speaker A:So it's not the size of our ask that God is concerned about.
Speaker A:It's the motivation of our heart.
Speaker A:So don't ask for small opportunities.
Speaker A:If, if what you want are big opportunities.
Speaker A:Ask God for those big opportunities.
Speaker A:And trust that if your heart's not quite right in that area, that God can deal with that, just as he can correct that, just like he did with James and John.
Speaker A:So be open.
Speaker A:And sometimes that's going to mean speaking to somebody else.
Speaker A:Just like the lady in the grocery store aisle who was willing to say, I want that item up there.
Speaker A:Be willing to say to other people, I want this.
Speaker A:This is what I'm asking God for.
Speaker A:And then also to look at that and to be aware of what are the people around you wanting?
Speaker A:Now, you can't answer that question for them, but you can be thinking about, I wonder what they want and getting curious and asking those questions.
Speaker A:But first and foremost, I want you see what I did there?
Speaker A:I want you to begin asking, what do I want?
Speaker A:And then giving voice to that, to God and to others.
Speaker A:And then wait and see what he's going to do.
Speaker A:And when some of those things happen, send me an email.
Speaker A:You can find me.
Speaker A:There's contact forms on my website, stephanieprisons.com find me, send me an email and let me know how this is playing out in your life.
Speaker A:All right, my friend, that's going to wrap us up for today.
Speaker A:And I want you to remember this because it is absolutely true.
Speaker A:You have an impact that is immeasurable, eternal, and irreplaceable.
Speaker A:I'll say time.
Speaker B:Thank you for listening.
Speaker B:Visit the website stephaniepresents.com and sign up for High Impact to join the mission of building spiritually strong, emotionally healthy and relationally smart women and families.
Speaker B:You can also book Stephanie to speak at your event and check out additional resources.
Speaker B:Together we can invite and equip generations to engage fully in God's grand story.
