Several months ago, a friend introduced me to one of the scariest monsters I’ve ever encountered.

You won’t hear it coming. It doesn’t hide under your bed or wait for you in a dark hallway. It doesn’t need the cover of night. In fact, it can find you in broad daylight.

Sometimes it shows up while you’re scrolling, sometimes it slips into a conversation, sometimes it catches your attention through something someone else has, something you heard about, or something you didn’t even know you wanted five minutes ago. Before you realize it’s there, it has already started doing its work.

The More Monster.

I had never heard the phrase before, but I knew the monster. I’ve been visited by it plenty of times. There have been moments in my life when I had exactly what I asked for, prayed for, and needed, and somehow, I still wanted more. Nothing I had looked good, but everything I didn’t have did.

That’s what makes the More Monster so deceptive. It doesn’t always tell me that my life is bad, sometimes it just convinces me that something else would make it better.

A little more. Something different. Something next.

Wanting more isn’t inherently wrong. Contentment and desire can occupy the same space. I can be grateful for where I am and still have hopes for where I’m going. The problem comes when what I want next begins changing the way I see what I have now. I’ve experienced that too.

There was a time when I was emotionally upset about something I wanted. I was talking to my mom about it, and instead of telling me what I should do, she asked me to do something.

“I want you to think about what you want.” So I did.

Then she said: “Now I want you to think about if that is what you really want.”

The answer was immediately no. Once I had enough space to think beyond the thing itself, I could see everything that would come with it. The responsibility, the pressure, the tradeoffs, the parts I wanted and the parts I would have to accept in order to have them. I wanted the thing, but I didn’t want the life attached to it. 

Of course that conversation brought up other questions.  Should I want it? Could I get it? Do I actually want it? There is a difference.

Every desire does not require pursuit. Some things I’ve wanted needed action, some needed patience, some needed a closer look, and some needed to be released. But the biggest question, am I learning to care well for what I already have? Sometimes I can become so focused on what I’m asking for next that I forget I’m already responsible for what is here now. My time, relationships, resources, opportunities, gifts, and even my own attention.

Luke 12:48 says, “When someone has been given much, much will be required in return; and when someone has been entrusted with much, even more will be required.”

The words entrusted and required stared directly at me in that scripture and made me look at what is already in my hands differently. What does what I have require of me? Am I caring for it well? Am I nurturing what needs to be nurtured? Am I so focused on asking for what’s next that I’m overlooking what has already been entrusted to me?

I don’t want to spend so much time preparing for what might come next that I neglect what is already here. Learning to steward what I have is part of preparing me to wisely receive whatever comes next. Does caring well for what I have guarantee me more? No, but it reminds me that whatever comes next will require something of me too.

The more I’ve practiced sitting with that question, the more it has become something bigger than a decision-making tool. It has become a posture of surrender. Surrender has not meant that I stopped wanting things. It has meant becoming more willing to hold what I want with open hands. To recognize that just because something is available to me doesn’t mean it belongs in my life, and to trust that I do not have to possess everything I desire in order for my life to be full. That last one stings a bit and has required some work.

The More Monster survives on the idea that more is where the good stuff is. You know, like more money, more recognition, more opportunity, more space, more certainty, more time. Simply, more whatever your more happens to be. Our lists won’t look the same. Our lives don’t either.

What feels like abundance to one person may feel like necessity to another. What one person is trying to acquire, another may be trying to release. Someone may be praying for a door to open while someone else is gathering the courage to close one. We are all traveling our own roads. They just have a funny way of carrying some of the same questions.

What do I want? What do I need? What is enough?  What am I chasing? What am I afraid to release? What am I overlooking because I’m looking somewhere else?

I can only answer those questions for myself, but I will share what keeps coming back to me: Things are not the thing.

I know what you’re thinking: then what is the thing? I can’t answer that for you. I’m still answering it for myself, but I know some of what it looks like in my life. Faith, wisdom, peace, love, presence. None of these things have a price tag. Price and value are not the same thing. These aren’t things I have to leave my life to go find. They are things I can carry with me as I live it.

I’m sure the More Monster will visit again. Apparently, one of its superpowers is memorizing home addresses. I’m getting better at recognizing it. At questioning what it tells me I need and taking a closer look at what I already have.

I will still want more. I just don’t want wanting more to keep me from recognizing what is already valuable. So, when the More Monster comes knocking, I have another question to ask:

What comes with it?

Before I go looking for more, I’II take another look at what’s already here.

I love you, but God loves you more.

In courage,

Carnell