Episode #96 Take Heart, He’s Calling You- Noticing God

Hi friends, welcome to these few minutes of engaging with God in an uncommon conversation in your everyday life moment. I'm grateful to be spending this time with you and, apparently, I am really loving Mark chapter 10 right now because I knew I wanted to talk about the story of blind Bartimaeus and we just got done talking about some verses from Mark chapter 10 in the last episode, but when looking up my scripture reference today, I realized we are again in Mark 10.

We're talking about how to notice God in scripture and how to pay attention to and recognize his character and his nature on display. And one of the practical ways that we can pay attention to God as highlighted in the word is, recognizing repetitions.

Sometimes we'll see verses from the Old Testament repeated, quoted, or even spoken to as the fulfillment of the promise in the New Testament. Sometimes we'll see phrases repeated within a short number of verses back-to-back or we'll see just God's character highlighted in consistent ways because he is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

And today we're talking about Blind Bartimaeus, and this passage of scripture has one of my absolute favorite verses in it. Surprisingly, it's not actually spoken by Jesus here, it's spoken by his disciples, and I'll read that to you here in a minute.

But if his story sounds familiar to you from this podcast, you might be recalling that we talked a little bit about it back in episode 76 as an example of a breath prayer.

But today we're looking at his story from a different angle. And so I'll read Mark 10:46-52.

“And they came to Jericho. And as he was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a great crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the roadside. And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’ And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he cried out all the more, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me!’ And Jesus stopped and said, ‘Call him.’ And they called the blind man, saying to him, ‘Take heart. Get up; he is calling you.’ And throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. And Jesus said to him, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ And the blind man said to him, ‘Rabbi, let me recover my sight.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Go your way; your faith has made you well.’ And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him on the way.” (Mark 10:46-52)

I love what the disciples say in verse 49, take heart, get up. He is calling you. For a long time, that was a recording that I tried to use as my wake-up alarm to help me get up earlier in the morning. The recognition that I can take heart and get up because Jesus is calling to me.

This invitation, this calling, echoes for all of us constantly.

It's pretty normal to talk about calling or to think of our calling as the thing that God is inviting us to go and do. You'll hear people talk about feeling called to ministry, to vocations, to countries or movements. We get to come be part of the Holy Spirit's move on earth. His kingdom is already here.

Also, I love the reminder we have here that our first calling is to come to Jesus. Before the call to go out is the call to him, the call to know him.

There were people in the crowd that told Bartimaeus to be silent. He was in need and calling out to Jesus for mercy and Jesus said, call him. And I pictured the disciples running with enthusiasm, take heart, get up, he's calling you. But what I didn't realize until recently was how this wording is something the disciples got to hear Jesus use over and over again.

In Matthew 9, Jesus is healing a paralytic. And I'll read verse 2.

“And behold, some people brought to him a paralytic, lying on a bed. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven.’” (Matthew 9:2)

And then a few verses down in that same chapter, it's the woman with the issue of blood it says in verse 22,
“Jesus turned, and seeing her, he said, ‘Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.’” (Matthew 9:22)

And then in Matthew 14, Jesus catches up to the disciples by walking on the water. They freak out because they think he's a ghost. And then in verse 27, it says,

“Jesus spoke to them saying, ‘Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.’” (Matthew 14:27)

In the ESV translation, this is “take heart” or in some places “take courage.” The original word in Greek is tharseo which means to be of good courage, to be of good cheer. We don't have to stay in distress because of who God is, because he is calling to us, because he is here, because he will make us well.

And I don't know what's going on in your world right now. I don't know what you're navigating today, I don't even know what you're navigating right now as you listen to this podcast, but God does.

I like to think of the disciples running over to blind Bartimaeus to say to him the things they heard Jesus say to the others that he healed. The very phrase that he said to them when they were afraid. And so as a fellow disciple of Christ, as a fellow Christ follower, I'm taking this opportunity to share these same words with you.

Take heart. Get up. He is calling you.

You can bring the things you're facing to him. When Bartimaeus came to Jesus and became no longer blind, Jesus had asked him, what would you have me do for you? As you have specific things on your heart and your mind that you would like Jesus to do for you, I encourage you talk with him about that, bring that to him.

And I'm also going to flip this question around to a question that we can ask of God, because oftentimes he has greater insight to the things that we need. And so here's our question to ask God today:

God, what is something you want to do for me, and will you help me receive that?

Have a good talk.

And if you've been encouraged by this content, please share it with a friend and help them grow in their conversational relationship with God too!

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