I Want More!

This post is written to link with Five Minute Friday: write for five minutes on a one-word prompt.  The prompt today is “more.”

I hear the word “more” and The Little Mermaid comes to mind: the song “Part Of Your World” where Ariel expresses her dissatisfaction with her current life and her desire for more.

“Look at this stuff; isn’t it neat?
Wouldn’t you think my collection’s complete?
Wouldn’t you think I’m the girl, the girl who has everything?…
But who cares?  No big deal- I want more!”

I would listen to this as a teenager and feel like someone understood, because in many ways my longings were the same as Ariel’s- the desire to move beyond what I knew, to explore the world, to find freedom.

Of course there are dangers in longing for more- that we become selfish and ungrateful and fail to appreciate what we have, that we look for “more” in the wrong places, seeking what we think will satisfy only to be disappointed.  (Been there, done that!)

But, to be honest, I still want more.

I want to know God more, to walk with him more closely, to see more of his power, to see more people come to know him, to live for him more and to walk in more of the freedom he offers.

That’s not to say I’m ungrateful for all that God has done.  I have a list of dates ingrained in my mind where God broke through in ways that transformed me: 6th November 2003, 7th March 2006, 10th January 2011… Each year on these dates I look back and remember and thank God for all he has done.

Even in the last year, while there has been no specific life-changing date, I can see lots of little steps to freedom which have all added up to significant progress and I rejoice in that.

The desire for more is not a lack of gratitude, but a refusal to settle for less than the “life in all its fullness” that Jesus came to give, a realisation that I am still a work in progress, and a longing to step into all that God has planned for me and to press on to know him more.

“I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me.   No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead,  I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.”  (Philippians 3:12-14 NLT)