LOVING GOD WITH OUR MUCHNESS (WHEN IT’S ALL TOO MUCH)

Whatever is in your hands or is taking you under, your muchness is not too much.

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WHEN WE FEEL LIKE WE’RE TOO MUCH

“I was just curious.”

The question hung in the air. I curled my toes into the sand and avoided his eyes. Even though the sun was still high, the air felt cold. Steady waves thudded against the sand, filling the silence between us. I watched the sand and wished I could take back my words like the sea snatched back its foam.  

“The problem with you,” he started, his voice breaking over the swell, “is that you’re too curious for your own good.”

It stung, but mostly because he was right. The question didn’t need to be asked. Not then. Not by me. Too curious would join a list of other labels I’d collect about my muchness. Too intense. Too emotional. Too rational. Too ambitious. Too quiet. Too loud. Sticky criticisms and well-meaning comments that settle in as scripts about who we are. The muchness we try to manage, vacillating between embracing it and tamping it down. 

But what if those attributes that spill over the sides of our lives—the intensity and noise and ambition and curiosity and pain—are part of loving God? What if we’re supposed to love him with the parts of ourselves that scare us?  

THE GREATEST COMMANDMENT

The Israelites were given a central commandment: “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”^[1]https://www.esv.org/Deuteronomy+6/

It’s the stuff of Sunday school and cross stitches. Most of the time, we read it and grit our teeth, like loving God means working as hard as we can until our energy runs out. Trying with all our strength. Except that familiar command doesn’t actually include the word “strength”.

The Hebrew word translated strength is “me’od” is an adverb that means “very” or “much”. In Genesis 1:31, God calls his creation very (me’od) good. In Genesis 4:5, Cain was very (me’od) angry at Abel. In Genesis 7:18, the flood waters rose and increased greatly (me’od). The word carries an intensity that is used to modify other words, so that the command is literally to, “love the LORD your God with all your heart, all of your soul, and all of your muchness.”^[2]This video offers a helpful overview of the meaning of me’od. 

Years later, Jesus would restate the command, adding that we are also to love God with our mind.^[3]Mark 12:28-34; Matthew 22:34-37 The term encompasses our thoughts and intellect and understanding. It’s another layer of depth that contemplates loving God with our whole lives. And maybe that’s the whole point.

But I can’t help but think about why Jesus restated the command in the first place. We meet Jesus being tested by an expert in religious law, asking him the greatest commandment. We don’t learn the man’s name, just his title. Which suggests that this is a man whose identity and social standing was wrapped up in his intellect and knowledge of what God required. In that context, Jesus’ answer is at once searing and benign; intimate and universal: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” Jesus gives a universal command that meets this man in a deeply personal way, telling him to love God with his individual muchness: his mind.  

LOVING GOD WITH OUR MUCHNESS

Muchness means the kind of abundance we want: strength and beauty and wealth and talent and time. But it also includes the kind of abundance we wish we didn’t have, all those sticky labels we carry where we believe we are too much. And it encompasses those seasons when the excess spilling into our lives is pain and suffering and sickness. When our muchness is impatience, fear, worry and doubt.

The command is to love God with that.

Not to buckle down and try. 

Not to wrestle our muchness into submission or let it tumble from our lives. 

But to direct it and love God with it. 

Loving God with our impatience might mean jumping out of the boat before it reaches shore ^[4]John 21:7. Loving God with our grief might mean pouring out a lament so raw it terrifies us ^[5]Psalm 3:6, coming to him as a child and planting our tears instead of wasting them.^[6]I love this message about planting our tears. Loving God with our unanswered prayers might mean falling on grace over and over when suffering won’t lift.^[7]2 Corinthians 12:9

When you feel like you’re too much and what you’re carrying is too heavy, God asks you to love him with that, not to make it smaller.

Whatever is in your hands or is taking you under, your muchness is not too much.