What does Acts 3:5 mean?

A lame beggar has asked Peter and John for alms (Acts 3:2–3). Actually, he's probably asked everyone who has come through the gate where he is stationed. But Peter stops and tells the man to look at him. He does so, expecting Peter will hand over money.

Peter doesn't. He doesn't have any money. What he has is faith in Jesus that will heal the man.

In The Weight of Glory, and Other Addresses, C. S. Lewis famously said:

"It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."*

We often treat God like the lame man did Peter: asking for a small thing when He wants to give us so much more. We ask for money; He offers spiritual healing that will make our hearts soar. When the man receives strong feet and ankles, he doesn't complain that he didn't receive a coin, he rises, "walking and leaping and praising God" (Acts 3:8). May we all do the same when God gives us what we need, not what we ask for.

*Lewis, C. S, and Walter Hooper. The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses. First HarperCollins edition 2001 [revised] ed. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001.