I’ve bought a new day bed to put in my study. It has been in the back of my mind for some years to be able to provide a bed for at least one visitor and the plan would be to use it as a sort of couch when it is not needed as a bed. This required some re-organisation of my study and the need to get rid of some clutter.
When my husband asked whether I ever read my old journals, I told him, not really. Perhaps I might look back to earlier entries for the current years, but I don’t really go back. I decided that it was time to get rid of them. Dump them. After all, the rule for decluttering is, ‘if you haven’t used it in a year, you probably won’t.’
So I got out the box and started sorting. I found I couldn’t get rid of them. There is so much of me and God in them. I started to cry. It was like deciding to throw out old love letters. Not only are the books themselves pretty, sometimes I have drawn pictures and coloured them, one year I got given a journal which included verses to colour. I couldn’t do it.

I got to reading a very old journal. The resource I had been using as my guide presumably asked me to write down my wishes. I was shocked to read two of my wishes. One was to write a best-selling book or TV show and one was that my son would play cricket for South Africa. He was in primary school at the time. How worldly I was! Fame seemed to have been my main ambition.
Our sermon this morning was based on Mark 10 from verse 35. James and John said to Jesus, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.”
“And he said to them, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand, and one at your left, in your glory.”
They were looking for worldly glory.
Not much later, blind Bartimaeus called out to Jesus. Jesus stopped. He deviated from His path to Jerusalem for a blind beggar.
“And Jesus said to him, ‘What do you want me to do for you?” (verse 51 ESV)
Same question, different answer. Bartimaeus wanted to see. He wanted to move from darkness to light. It makes the answer of James and John look pathetic.
I believe Jesus asks us the same question. “What do you want me to do for you?” When we answer, I believe He asks us another question. “Are you really serious about this?”
My Prayer
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, sometimes I don’t even know what I want. Through Your Holy Spirit please search my heart that I might know the desires of my heart. Please refine those desires to be in tune with the beat of Your heart.