2016) MORE

Written on March 2, 2016.

Sometimes a word taps me on the shoulder and I ponderingly pause to catch the whisper as it wafts. Other times, a word will cross my path like a gentleman’s jacket laid across a splash and splotch of mud and muck. The way has been made, but ginger care must still be taken in order for the crossing to be completed.

When a word lays its life down before me in such a beseeching beckoning, a quest begins. A perusing probe. And so it has been with the word “more”.

More has become the moan and motto of a passionate people pounding after Pappa. We want more, need more and gotta have more. I know His heart swells at the cry for more of Him. Yet, of late as I hear “more” I have been feeling a Princess Bride, “I don’t think this word means what we think it means” tugging at my heart.

For there seems to be a rub in it, that brings a rawness of reality that we wave “more” in declaration that we have less. That there is a deepening deficit instead of a mounting magnificence. It’s tough to testify from a hole. The bumps and bruises sustained on the way up release a different sound than that which trembles and triumphs from a place raised up.

My own cry for more began anew as I sought not to find the specific definition but the rumbling reason that we never quite come to the place where we declare we have received it. THE more. And to discover if the hinder and hamper might actually be, well, us.

The Hebrew word for “more” is ‘meod’ meaning “muchness.” I love that. Lots. Muchness sounds like a word I would make up in order to express something just like I heard it in Heaven. More is muchness! ‘Meod’ also means “abundance” but not just any ole abundance. It is the abundance that comes “from what has been planted.” More is the harvest of what Pappa plants. In us.

Each time I type ‘meod’ I see ‘moed’ which in Hebrew means “appointed time”. That is how I see “more”. It is the appointed arrival of the harvest of what He planted when we asked for more. We much less constantly exclaim its arrival than we demand its coming. Why?

Because we see the deposit as the more. We think, “That was nice. Thanks for the sweet kiss Pappa. It isn’t quite what I thought was coming though. So, I’ll just ask for more.” And off we go, seeking seed that might bear more fruit. Quicker, easier. Ever searching for the exceedingly, abundantly more, when all along its inside the incubator of us simply needing some light, oxygen and rain to enable it to come forth.

Another meaning of ‘meod’ also means “swiftly.” Isn’t that somethin? We move on after the deposit, the vest in of Heaven and its Host, to tempt a trade that might have a quicker return. And truly, the expedite we run after is wrapped around the seed He planted. It just needs a little wait and wonder to burst forth from the winter of our darkened spots and become our spring bounty.

But how can something grow we shed no light upon it after it scatter and sow? The light of gratitude that He gave once more at our very asking. How can it burgeon and bloom without the oxygen of trust? Even a mutter or mumble releases oxygen upon a seed, taking it from an undertone to an overture. And water is simply a colorless, odorless tasteless liquid until we reveal it as rain and river come to irrigate the genesis of the carried kernel.

There is more. We know it. Now, can we be those courageous enough to grow it?

JOURNAL JUBILEE:
Right now, there is a more germinating inside you. There has been a period of dormancy for all of us as we have looked for corners to glean from instead of resting in fertile fields. Let Pappa reveal to you a more you asked for that you left as a seed fallen to the ground void. Once you see the spore once more, nurture it with gratefulness, trust and praise. And watch. As shoots come forth and the existence of more emerges.