Life Is More

words & music by Doug Howell (4/72)

all her silver’s sittin’
in a row on the shelf
along with a fine-carved wood
how I wish she could have made it
she always wanted the good things
and now they’ve got her

she’s got a golden car with a
six on the floor and
shoes for every day of the year
will she ever hear the children?
she used to bend down and touch them
now she just looks down

yesterday she could see the world
the way a child alone can see
and I can remember how she used to
smile at me but today she could only
cry

she told me she’d had enough of God
her love for the Lord had died
and how it hurt inside to hear it
she wanted so much to live
but now she’s dying

don’t you know life is more?
you’re turning your back on an open door
oh, why won’t you listen when I tell you
Jesus wants to give you a life that’s
free

1975 Notes

I remember going to the jewelry store and watching all the newlyweds pick out their china and their wood carvings and their silver. And I wondered if any of them knew life is more.
Matthew 6:25; I Timothy 6:7-10

2005 Notes

This song seems to equate materialism with backsliding, but it’s a lot more complex than that. (Big surprise.) Materialism is just one of a smorgasbord of things that can insulate us from reality, from God, from others and ourselves. It’s an easy one to pick on because it’s so obvious—at least it seems like it on first inspection. But the older and wiser we get, the more we learn that those “obvious” things are often not quite what they seem.

It’s not so much what’s in your hand. It’s how tightly your fingers are twined around whatever’s there. It’s whether things flow out as easily as they flow in. There’s a song called “Let Go” about four albums from now that really puts it in a nutshell. If we could only see the value of things—and people—as God sees them…