Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” So they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take courage; get up, Jesus is calling you.” And throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus.
Mark 10:49-50

Jesus noticed Bartimaeus! All that yelling was heard by Jesus, despite the crowd urging the beggar to be silent. And immediately Bartimaeus responds.

The chaos and busyness of our lives are all a part of our desire to belong. We rush around town and stack our to-dos in such a way that we can appear important. Sometimes, we are not even aware of this habit of perpetual busyness. But then, when Jesus calls to us, will we be able to hear?

One way to combat the controlling tendencies we have is to slow down, and really examine who we think we are. We laugh about how controlling we are when it comes to chores or our lifestyle, but what about the vanity that plagues us when we obsessively control our image? Our attempts to be perfect—whatever that is?  Jesus loves us as we are. We keep hearing that. But when we will believe it? Today, pray for the courage to surrender your false identity to God and simply rest in his total acceptance of you.