the risk to want more.

The biggest risk I’ve ever taken in my life is letting myself want more. A few months ago, I let myself ask God to become more to me than a distant comforting fantasy that I occasionally accessed when I needed him.

I was tired of looking back and seeing missing gaps of experienced closeness with him without knowing why. I recognized that many of the moments where I felt close to him were knit together with the hardest seasons of my life (along with hard times where I felt he was absent).

I discovered my “good” seasons to be lacking in intimacy; the emptiness I felt was palpable. I wanted more than just the 5-7 minute half-conscious early morning prayers I’d say when I wake up in the morning or the late-night Bible app readings that I secretly hoped would help me fall asleep.

I wanted the kind of intimate conversations I read about in the Bible, the ones where God saw the heart of the person he spoke to and offered himself with gentleness, kindness, wisdom, and love.

Counterintuitively, his response to my risking showed me that my search for closeness with him is less of a striving on my part and more so a letting myself be loved by him.

The more I’ve stilled and opened myself to wanting more from him, the more I’ve come to see, hear, and experience him. And to my surprise, the more I want him to have my time, my hands, and for him to know my heart—dreams, failures, and all.