The Invitation to More.
I sat in my spiritual director’s office, my mind buzzing with his ridiculous question,
What if God isn’t asking you to be better?
I had always lived with an inner voice that pushed and challenged me. I looked at everything—my work, my relationships, myself—and instinctively asked, how could this be better? I knew I wasn’t perfect, so surely there was more improvement to be done. God deserves my best, after all: to be a better servant, to be better at being kind, to become a better Christ-follower. How could that voice possibly be wrong?
It brought me back to a moment of feedback from a professor I deeply respected. We had been asked to write about our future formation—a paper that felt easy enough. I listed all the ways I would continue to improve so I could become a better pastor, a better friend, a better person. Growth meant progress. Progress meant better.
When I got the paper back, the only feedback written was this: “Grace upon grace, like an ocean wave.”
…Okay? Not exactly the feedback I was hoping for.
—
Months later, I found myself facing a different challenge as a young youth pastor. There was a group of students I genuinely loved—but I had no idea how to pastor them well. My usual instincts failed me. I didn’t know what steps to take or how to lead them forward.
So I did the only thing I knew to do: I brought it to God.
Over the following weeks, I kept being led back to a prayer from Scripture. And in the most quiet way, God met me in His word - through this prayer of Paul. Not only did He show me a way forward with my students, He transformed my relationship with Him.
“For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” (Ephesians 3:14-21, NIV)
—
Here, we see Paul on his knees—a posture of reverence, humility, and readiness to obey. Writing from prison, Paul is not preoccupied with changing his circumstances. Instead, his entire being is gripped by a longing to see the people of God strengthened by the Spirit. He does not promise that submission to God will make life go smoothly—after all, he is writing these words from a cell. Paul knows suffering firsthand.
For Paul, the work is not about grasping for control over life’s problems; it is about tending to the state of the soul. He prays for the strengthening of our inner being—the deep, unseen place where formation happens. Christ does not merely visit this space; He takes up residence there. He reshapes us, fortifies us, and redefines us from the inside out.
And the Christ who takes up residence in our hearts is a loving one—marked by a love that surpasses all understanding.
A love with a width that includes all people; no one is beyond His reach.
A love with a length that spans all time and space; nothing could separate us from Him.
A love with a depth that follows us into our deepest grief, our deepest pain, and even our deepest sin—no darkness is too dark for Him.
A love with a height that raises us up; a love that does not stop at salvation, but calls us into life—into living.
I began to realize there was no more love for me to gain from God—and no love to lose. There was nothing I could achieve that would make Him notice me more, and nothing I had done or could ever do that would cause Him to look away. I already possessed every ounce of His love.
I had it all.
I always had.
I just hadn’t been living like it.
And the same goes for you, friend. God loves you precisely as you are, exactly where you are. God’s love meets you exactly where you stand, not where you hope to be someday. Even if nothing in your life ever changed, you would still have all of His love. You don’t have to become “better” to receive it—you already have all of His love.
So the question becomes,
Do you believe you have all of God’s love?
Do you believe you always have?
And do you live like it’s true?
—
It is at this point in the prayer when Paul expands our view. His vision is not simply that we would be loved by God, but that we would be filled with God. The One whose love surpasses understanding is also the One whose power exceeds our imagination. Not only can He do it, but He can do more.
And Paul’s words, written centuries ago, finally found their way into my own story:
God was never asking me to be better.
That was not the voice of God.
God was not asking me to be better; He was inviting me to more.
There is more life He extends to us. There is a greater way of living, when we are filled with His Spirit, than we could ask or imagine. He loves us right where we are - always. And with that assurance, He extends His hand and continually offers us the invitation to more. Because there is more to Him than we could ever know; and that in and of itself is an invitation to never stop looking to know Him. Faith and life with God does not stop at salvation; it is an endless journey of exploring and knowing Him, His love for us, and the life His Spirit can bring to us.
My life changed the day that I finally took His invitation. I began to experience the “more” He had for me. The full and complete love He has for me. I took a full dive into the grace He offered to me and the freedom from the demand of “better” that He gave to me.
So, friend… what if God isn’t asking you to be better?
What if He is standing before you, hand extended, inviting you into more?
I can’t urge you enough - reach out and take His hand.
Elizabeth Scull is a pastor with a call to shepherd people well — to walk with others through the beauty and complexity of following Jesus. She is also a wife, and a mother to one son and one dog-ter.
She enjoys tracing her family history, experimenting with new recipes, and unwinding with a good historical drama or crime thriller. Her current culinary hyper-fixation is homemade Chex Mix. Before this season of life, she judged soil competitively, served nine years in youth ministry, and once climbed into a trash can in the name of victory.