What’s One Thing Out Of Life That You Want More Than Anything?

What’s One Thing Out Of Life That You Want More Than Anything?

How Can Know That I Can Be Known By God, 

And Accepted As I Am, And Live In His Presence?

 

The one thing I want out of life more than anything is simple to say, but it took me years to understand: I want God Himself. Not what He gives me. Not the life He can build for me. I want Him. The psalmist said, “One thing I have desired of the Lord… that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life” (Psalm 27:4, NKJV). That verse stopped being poetry to me at some point and became a hunger. 

We can spend our entire lives chasing security, approval, comfort, or success, and still feel empty. Scripture is honest about that. “Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You” (Psalm 73:25–26, NKJV). Paul reached the same conclusion when he said everything else was loss compared to knowing Christ (Philippians 3:8–10, NKJV). When we put God first, Jesus promises that the rest of life finds its proper place: “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you” (Matthew 6:33, NKJV). 

But the deeper question isn’t just about desire. It’s about acceptance. Can I actually be known by God and still be welcomed? The answer is yes, and not because I cleaned myself up enough. I am accepted because God moved toward me first. “By grace you have been saved through faith… not of works” (Ephesians 2:8–9, NKJV). Our belonging does not rest on performance. It rests on God’s decision to love us. 

The Bible explains this with the language of adoption, and that is not abstract to me. I am an adopted child. I remember what it felt like to live out of uncertainty, never knowing if the place I was in would last. When I was adopted, I stopped being temporary. I had a home. I had a name. I belonged. That is exactly the picture Scripture gives us. “You received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, ‘Abba, Father’” (Romans 8:15–17, NKJV). We are not spiritual outsiders trying to earn a seat at God’s table. We are brought into His family. The Spirit Himself bears witness that we are His children. That means we do not approach God as strangers. We approach Him as sons and daughters. 

Paul says God chose us intentionally: “Having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will” (Ephesians 1:5, NKJV). Our acceptance is not reluctant. It is joyful on God’s side. And, as with earthly adoption, there is both a present reality and a future hope. We already belong, but we are still growing into the fullness of what that means. “We… eagerly wait for the adoption, the redemption of our body”(Romans 8:23, NKJV). We are secure now, and we are being completed over time. 

I think about inheritance sometimes in the same way. As the only surviving son in my family, I will one day inherit what my parents leave behind. Not because I earned it, but because I belong. Yet the greater inheritance I already received is not material. It is what they gave me in life: stability, guidance, protection, and the shaping of who I became. Spiritually, that mirrors what God has already given me: faith, identity, and the promise of a permanent home with Him. So when I ask how I can be known by God and accepted, the answer is not found in striving. It is found in receiving. We are already invited. We are already named. We are already loved. 

And the desire to live in His presence, that longing itself is evidence that He is drawing us. The life we want more than anything is not built by chasing experiences. It is built by walking daily with God, who has already made us His own. That is the life I want. That is the life we were made for.