What do you want? You could answer ‘a cup of tea’ or ‘Glastonbury Twanger pithivier’ (and perhaps add ‘please’ because you’re polite). The context affects the answer. But suppose there isn’t a context, no kettle, no waiter, suppose you were just asked: What do you want? Then the question becomes more weighty. What is it that will bring meaning to your life, or complete years of striving, or make up for the pain and hardship that’s gone before? What do you want?
King David, talks about receiving the desires of his heart by delighting himself in the Lord. (Psalm 37:4) Maybe the act of taking delight in the Lord focuses our desire on him.
For two blind men (Matt 20:29) the answer was easy: we want to see! Jesus gave them the desire of their heart, and they followed him. I wonder if the desire of their hearts was actually satisfied more through the following than from the miracle?
I wonder what Jeremiah would have said. Called by God to speak, he had to give up any hope of a quiet life in the shadows. He did what God asked and said, in an oracle of conflicted angst: “When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart’s delight, for I bear your name, LORD God Almighty.” Jer 15:16.
Raymond