More.

It’s a dirty word for me. I suppose it came to be so from knowing so well the weighty burden of less. “Less is more,” they say. But I didn’t believe that when the soles of my shoes wore away to reveal my seven-year-old toes. I didn’t believe that when the food in our pantry quickly disappeared each month into seven hungry mouths. I didn’t believe that when my car sputtered and stalled at every red light I came to.

“More” has haunted me all of my life. It has tormented me with the promise of freedom, the promise of happiness. And I feel it, that worldly pressure to measure up. It’s in the perfectly tailored social media posts, the outrageous numbers found on designer price tags, the insistent nudges from others to permanently bind my name to a plot of California soil. And so I run. I run to more and bigger and better. I run and run and run until my lungs heave with exhaustion and my soul screams with disgust.

I am the seed sown among thorns. Because when Jesus says, “[D]o not worry about your life, what you will eat [or drink], or about your body, what you will wear” (Matthew 6:25), I hear it. His words reach my ears but are suffocated by worry by the time they get to my heart. Because the pressures of this life are bountiful. They enrapture the hollow parts of our lives with promises to fulfill. They scream at us,

Be more!

Have more!

Do more!

And that’s precisely when I find myself with a wounded heart and blistered feet. Because the chase for “more” is exhausting.

But these things we chase—the money, the notoriety, the addictions—all of these things reflect our deep desire for fulfillment found only in Christ. And so we scurry around in search of something found in the one place we often forget to turn to—Him.

[bctt tweet="We scurry around in search of something found only in Him. // @IamBritCal"]

Less really is more. Run to Him.

Brittany Calavitta is an enthusiastic advocate for a good book, strong coffee, and a hopeful heart. After battling years of infertility, she and her husband welcomed their first child on September 11, 2016. You can find out more about her here.