One Thing: What would you ask for if you could ask for anything?

Picture the scene: a dusty lamp, a curl of smoke, and a genie announcing, “You have three wishes.” Most of us met that moment in Disney’s 1992 film ‘Aladdin’, and most of us have wondered since what we would ask for. The history is a little messier than our memory of it. The tale belongs to the One Thousand and One Nights, a collection linked to a 9th-century Arabic papyrus (Razzaque, 2017; Waxman, 2019). Aladdin himself may be a later addition, borrowed from an eighteenth-century Syrian storyteller (Waxman, 2019), and the three-wish limit seems to come from a different story, “The Fisherman and the Jinni,” in which a jinni promises three wishes to anyone who frees him from prison (Dennis, 2019).

So let me put the question to you. If you could ask for “one thing,” and know it would be granted, what would it be? Health? A better job? Healthy children and strong relationships? You may think I am being silly, but I am willing to bet you have murmured a wish like this under your breath: “If I could just get that job, things would be so much easier.” Just today a former student emailed me, asking me to pray that he would pass a certification exam. If he passes, he is sure that his life in financial services will change overnight. He was asking for “one thing.”

Now raise the stakes. Suppose the Creator of the universe agreed to grant your request. What would you ask of the Lord Almighty to satisfy your deepest need? The Bible records several people who faced that very moment, and what they asked for is revealing. When we can ask for anything, our request exposes what we love most.

Most of our wishes are really requests for relief: relief from pressure, from debt, from fear. There is nothing wrong with that, and Scripture invites us to bring every need to God in prayer (Philippians 4:6 English Standard Version). But relief and deepest need are not always the same thing. A wish can fix a problem and still leave us hungry. These people below seem to have understood the difference.

King David was described as a man after God’s own heart (1 Samuel 13:14), and he asked God for many things, including victory over his enemies (2 Samuel 5:19). Yet in Psalm 27 he names a single request: “One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple” (Psalm 27:4).

Scholars place this psalm in one of two dark seasons. Either David was fleeing King Saul, who was jealous of his acclaim and his faithfulness to God (Yandian, 2024), or he was fleeing his own son Absalom, whose quiet scheming ended in a coup that drove David from the throne (Tripp, 2023). Either way, a man running for his life could have asked for rescue. David did plead for protection later in the psalm (Psalm 27:11–12), but rescue was not his “one thing.” His “one thing” was not an outcome at all. It was a Person. He wanted to live near God, to look at Him and learn from Him for as long as he lived, and that desire kept fear from paralyzing him (Yandian, 2024). Moses made a similar request after the golden calf, when he asked, “Please show me your glory” (Exodus 33:18). In both men, the deepest hunger was for God himself.

David’s son Solomon was handed something no genie ever offered. At Gibeon, God himself appeared to the young king in a dream and said, “Ask what I shall give you” (1 Kings 3:5). It was a blank check from the Almighty. Solomon could have requested long life, riches, or the defeat of his enemies, and God names all three (1 Kings 3:11). Instead he asked for an understanding mind to govern God’s people and to discern between good and evil (1 Kings 3:9). His one thing was aimed outward. He wanted to serve well. God was pleased, and gave him wisdom along with “what you have not asked, both riches and honor” (1 Kings 3:13). Solomon may well have been the richest man who ever lived (Davis, 2025).

Now notice how the two requests fit together. David’s one thing pointed upward: give me Yourself. Solomon’s pointed outward: give me what I need to care for the people You love. Both asked for something only God can supply, and both received far more than they requested. Together they sketch the shape of a well-ordered life: first nearness to God, then service to the people He loves.

The question did not expire with Solomon. In Mark 10, Jesus asks it twice within a few verses. First James and John approach Him, and He says, “What do you want me to do for you?” They answer, “Grant us to sit, one at Your right hand and one at your left, in Your glory” (Mark 10:36–37). Their “one thing” was a seat of honor. Moments later, on the road out of Jericho, Jesus asks the identical question of a blind beggar named Bartimaeus, who answers, “Rabbi, let me recover my sight” (Mark 10:51). The question is the same, but the answers could hardly be more different. James and John asked for status. Bartimaeus asked for mercy, and he immediately followed Jesus down the road (Mark 10:52). The difference was not eloquence. It was honesty about need.

Not every “one thing” moment arrives as a request. Sometimes it arrives as a question, and the answer takes a lifetime. On September 2, 1944, twenty-year-old Navy pilot George H. W. Bush was flying a TBM Avenger over the Japanese-held island of Chichijima when anti-aircraft fire set his plane ablaze. He finished his bombing run and headed out over the water, because airmen who parachuted onto the island were executed. He ordered his crew to bail out, then jumped himself, gashing his head on the tail as he fell. Neither crewman was seen again. Bush landed in the water and swam to a raft, where he waited about four hours while Japanese boats came for him, until American fighters drove them off and a U.S. submarine surfaced right beside him (History.com Editors, 2009; Martin, 2018).

Other American airmen shot down near Chichijima were captured and killed, some beheaded and some run through with bayonets and bamboo spears (Pearson, 2018). Bush could have spent his life thanking God and moving on. Instead he spent thirty days aboard that submarine asking, “Why had I been spared?” and asking what God had in store for him (Martin, 2018). He did not ask for a wish. He asked for a purpose.

He spent the next half century answering it as a naval aviator, congressman, ambassador, vice president, and president, and he launched his Thousand Points of Light initiative to encourage ordinary Americans to serve one another. Like Solomon, he understood that being rescued is not the end of the story. It is the beginning of an assignment.

Look at what these people share in common. David wanted God himself. Solomon wanted wisdom to serve God’s people. Bartimaeus wanted mercy. Bush wanted to know the purpose of his rescue. None of them asked for a bigger life; each asked for a deeper one. And each asked from a place of need, whether the need was fear, responsibility, blindness, or the sea.

Jesus named this priority himself. When Martha was distracted by many tasks, he told her, “one thing is necessary,” and said that her sister Mary, seated at his feet, had chosen the good portion (Luke 10:42). Paul would later sum up his entire life in the same terms, writing, “one thing I do,” which was to press on toward the prize of the upward call of God in Christ (Philippians 3:13–14). The pattern runs through Scripture. A focused life begins with a focused request, and the focus is always God himself.

There is one more “one thing” moment worth hearing, spoken by a man with only hours to live. Hanging beside Jesus, a condemned criminal said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom” (Luke 23:42). He had no lamp, no good works, and no time. Jesus answered at once: “Today you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43). Do not miss what happened there. A thief asked to be remembered, and received exactly what David had longed for: a place in the presence of the LORD.

That request is already open to you. David wrote of acknowledging his sin and being forgiven (Psalm 32:5), and John promises that when we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us (1 John 1:9). Jesus has gone to prepare a place for his people (John 14:3), and in God’s presence there is fullness of joy (Psalm 16:11). Your eternity does not hang on a lamp, a ritual, or a lucky wish. It hangs on a prayer as short as the thief’s prayer.

A genie is bound to a lamp and belongs to whoever holds it. The Lord of Heaven belongs to no one, and He asks first: “Ask what I shall give you.” He is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think (Ephesians 3:20). I will keep praying that my former student passes his exam, because it matters to him and it matters to me. But I am also praying that whatever he receives, he will want God more than the thing itself. So what is your “one thing?”

Sources

Davis, E. W. (2025, December 19). Who is the richest person in history: King Solomon, Elon Musk, or Mansa Musa? Medium. https://medium.com/@edmondwdavis/who-is-the-richest-person-in-history-king-solomon-elon-musk-or-mansa-musa-08adf1202822.

Dennis, C. J. (2019). Origin of genies (from lamps) having a three wish limit? Science Fiction & Fantasy Stack Exchange. https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/203836/origin-of-genies-from-lamps-having-a-three-wish-limit.

History.com Editors. (2009). Navy aviator George H.W. Bush and his squadron attacked. HISTORY. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/september-2/navy-aviator-george-h-w-bush-and-his-squadron-attacked.

Martin, D. (2018, December 4). How George H.W. Bush survived a harrowing brush with death in World War II. CBS News. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-george-h-w-bush-survived-his-brush-with-death-in-world-war-ii/.

Pearson, N. (2018, December 4). The Chichijima incident: George HW Bush’s extraordinary WWII survival story. 9News. https://www.9news.com.au/world/chichijima-incident-george-hw-bush-extraordinary-wwii-survival-story/b8edd905-c63b-409f-971b-23f08e533389.

Razzaque, A. A. (2017, September 14). Who “wrote” Aladdin? The forgotten Syrian storyteller. Ajam Media Collective. https://ajammc.com/2017/09/14/who-wrote-aladdin/.

Tripp, P. (2023, September 4). Psalm 27: How to do theology. Paul Tripp Ministries. https://www.paultripp.com/5-minute-bible-studies/psalms/psalm-27-how-to-do-theology.

Waxman, O. B. (2019, May 23). Was Aladdin based on a real person? Here’s why scholars are starting to think so. Time. https://time.com/5592303/aladdin-true-history/.

Yandian, B. (2024, December 12). Psalm 27: The fugitive. Bob Yandian Ministries. https://www.bobyandian.com/bible-topics/psalm-27-the-fugitive.