when i'm restless {again}...

i am slowly learning to not fear those moments when i feel restless.


those moments that tend to sidle up next to me,

cozy on close and take me by surprise.


it's those moments that tend to leave me feeling weak,

grasping for anything to grab on to

so that i can find my footing again.


i used to hate those moments.


because i didn't see them for what they are.

a society that denies the supernatural usually ends up elevating the natural to supernatural status... c.s. lewis uses the phrase "sweet poison of the false infinite" to describe this...tendency in the human species. we allow substitute sacred, or false infinites, to fill the vacuum of our disenchanted world. 

alone of all the beasts, the human animal has the power and freedom to center life in one impulse. we have not, it seems, the power to abstain from worship. (dostoyevsky had predicted this in his novel The Possessed: "the one essential condition of human existence is that man should always be able to bow down before something infinitely great. if men are deprived of the infinitely great they will not go on living and die of despair. the Infinite and the Eternal are as essential for man as the little planet on which he dwells." simone weil adds, "one has only the choice between God and idolatry. there is no other possibility. for the faculty of worship is in us, and it is either directed somewhere into this world, or into another.")

philip yancey

could it be,

(and it could be that i am a little slow on the grasping of this truth...)

that the moments were i feel the most restless,

when my hands are grasping 

and i am longing for anything to satisfy the longings in my heart

that it is then that i'm longing for Him the strongest?


instead of turning to what brings temporary comfort,

can i find ultimate rest in the worship of Jesus?


tomorrow is sunday and i'll stand with other believers and worship The One Who has captured my heart.

i will hear strong words that speak of a strong and loving God and my spirit will be fed.


but what of those moments, those hours, those days when i am not surrounded by tangible reminders of His Truth?

when, in the quiet, i feel my losses acutely and i want to make the pain go away.

what then?


has He lifted the veil a touch this evening,

allowed me to catch a glimpse of His movement in the quiet places deep in my spirit i rarely tend to go?

{God} delights, it seems, in using trees, flowers, rivers, automobiles, friends, enemies, church buildings, paintings in order to announce His presence or to work out His purposes...there is something crude in the depiction of God intervening directly in the play, the clumsy deus ex machina interrupting the speeches of the other actors and upsetting the stage. how much more tantalizing the God Who hints and lurks and cajoles hiddenly through and around the actors, even unbeknownst to them. it is the humble God who chooses so to act.

robert barron

i don't need to fear that restlessness that tempts me to search for anything else but Him...because it's His Voice that is drawing me, turning my ear to find the Source of that longing i feel;

and causing me to bow low in worship before The One Who opens these eyes to the many ways that He relentlessly pulls me into relationship with Himself...