More

More

Do you make New Year’s resolutions? I normally don’t, but this year I am keenly focused on more. Not more stuff or more money, not more power or control. This year I want to love more, give more, and sit more often at God’s feet with no agenda in mind but to experience his presence.

Loving God and loving others are precious things. And imagining ways to grow in them is a challenge. But I aim to try.

Loving more will no doubt mean extending myself beyond my safe, trusted circles of family and friends. That’s a scary prospect. What will happen, I wonder, if I make it a point each day to tell or show one other person that I love them—and to at least hint that God loves them more?

How can a person with finite resources give more and more? I can start by sharing what I have, giving what I no longer use or need, and shifting funds from one budget category to repurpose in another. And I can offer up the most precious commodity of all: my time. I confess I often hoard it. Time is the one thing I struggle to relinquish on any terms but my own. I need it, I convince myself. It’s mine. Already in this barely begun year I’ve been asked to part with more of it for causes that are undoubtedly good. How will I know the best way to respond?

I will know by spending time with God. Understanding is a good side effect of a relationship with him. Through uninterrupted, content-to-sit-in-his-presence time—by listening, praising, dreaming big, and feeling small, I will learn to better love and give. I’m convinced this one thing is the key to my year of more. If I fail at this, I’ll succeed at nothing.

More. I want more. It sounds selfish, doesn’t it? But it needn’t be. Open my heart and my hands, Father, and give me more of you! I promise—out of love for you—to keep the giving going in your name.

How precious is Your lovingkindness, O God! And the children of men take refuge in the shadow of Your wings. They drink their fill of the abundance of Your house; and You give them to drink of the river of Your delights. For with You is the fountain of life; in Your light we see light.

Psalm 36:7-9, NASB