It is the ultimate customer service question. “What do you want?” It creates options, it provides choices. We love to hear this, usually, because it means that, for a moment, our wishes are at the center of the universe. We get to say, “I want that.”

It is the ultimate relationship speed bump.  “What do you want” or better seen, perhaps, as “whadayawant.” When we are interrupted for the sixth time, we can get bothered. We don’t want to know what they want.

It can be the ultimate prayer, before trying to understand, before trying to solve the problem. “What do You want?”

I have been realizing how quickly I jump to solutions, how quickly I decide what I want, how often I start doing what I think you…or God…should want.

Instead, I’m trying to start with, “God, what do You want?”

Sometimes those words are clearly answered in Scripture. Sometimes simply stopping allows me to see the answers that God is providing through other people. Sometimes I have to learn to be willing to wait.

But I won’t know which of the ways God will answer, at least not simply, unless I stop and ask, “What do You want?”

I think it’s pretty close to what Jesus said:  “Thy will be done.”

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(I know. This is less than 300 words. But I’m traveling back and forth to our denomination’s General Confere3nce and I fell asleep while writing, and am finishing in the morning. And praying. “What do You want.”)