Oh, the restlessness!
Oh, the stretching against the confines of life, like a full term baby in the womb!
These days have been heavy with blistering heat and wretched restlessness. I know deep in my spirit that this feeling is coming from a place of ungratefulness and discontentment... that this is just a symptom of a far more devastating disease- the disease of not satisfying myself in God alone. I look for satisfaction in seemingly EVERY other place, sort of like how my six year old child will look everywhere but my eyes when I am trying to correct him.
Yes, it started in the Garden of Eden... Adam and Eve discontentedly wanting the ONE thing God said they couldn't have... and now here we are, all these many generations later, grumbling and disbelieving His goodness. His sufficiency.
I scour the real estate websites. Denver. Portland. Reno. Seattle. San Luis Obispo. Kansas City... I mean, surely I would find my satisfaction waiting for me in one of these places, right? It's a GEOGRAPHY issue, I tell myself. And just look at all that square footage and those beautiful mature trees! Ooooh, a cul-de-sac! That's what I need! It's just far too hot to find joy here. If I could just live somewhere more beautiful, more temperate, I could feel fulfilled.
It all sounds so riDONKulous when I type it out here. But I have REALLY been thinking and believing these things, as if they were actual answers to the cavernous, carnivorous longing in my heart!
Perhaps a new house here in town would do it. Or maybe one out in the country where my boys could roam for hours, you know... when it wasn't too hot or too cold. Yeah! That's the ticket!
Meanwhile, the Bible that I moved out to my coffee table so it would be physically in my line of sight everyday collects more layers of dust to match my arid spirit. I pace and clean and rearrange and try not to berate my children too often.
I know what the answer is. I just need to lift my chin and make eye contact with Him. Yet I continue to look at my feet and my house and my children and my husband and my book and my TV show and the Internet until I go completely NUMB. I know His eyes would be full of love and compassion and empathy if I could just make myself look there, but I can't seem to make myself DO IT. I choose instead to go to bed numb and wake up numb and dream of far away places.
So... I settle for rearranging my furniture again. I do it every single time I start to feel this way... like life is so monotonous and laborious that, as my friend Bethany so aptly put it the other day, you start to wonder if you've woken up in the movie 'Groundhog Day'.
Lord, save me. Quickly! I repent of believing that you are not good enough. I repent of trying to satisfy myself with the things of this world. I repent of being ungrateful towards you... of basically telling you that what your Son did on the cross wasn't quite enough for me.
It was enough. It IS enough. And it will be enough until the day You take me home.
16 comments:
Thank you. I feel the same way. I really needed to read this today.
First time comment-er, long time blog-stalker here... Found you a few years ago through my childhood friend Lorie's blog. What a great reminder to keep my eyes on the Lord! Thanks Emory.
This is so well written - and so true for me also! Why is it so hard to do the one thing we know we NEED to do? Thanks for sharing this part of yourself with us - it is nice to read that we are not alone in our struggles. Praying for a renewed desire for time with God - for all us.
beautiful. I can totally relate. I get jealous of other people's "things" without realizing that I have everything I need.
Oh, how I know this feeling.
I am super, acutely aware of how much I need to look up at Him and stop looking to the world to fulfill me. Then I fall into the trap of thinking if I log 20 minutes of bible-reading time, it'll all be fixed.
I'm living proof that you can read your bible daily and still not be really seeing or seeking Him.
I want to change, I just don't know how. I've been praying He'll make my heart less hardened but then I act like it's all on Him to fix it now that I've asked.
Wow. You just wrote exactly what my husband and I have been feeling for the past month. Thank you for putting it on paper (well, typing it out) for me to read and digest. This is what I needed.. to see that we're not the only ones who feel like this and to be reminded of the One who is so much better than anything we could ever dream up or imagine.
That was beautifully written. And I don't think any of us can be reminded enough that what Jesus did for us IS enough. Especially when it is so easy to get distracted in this world.
Well written! I too "feel" the same way, I just want to be content. I have always had everything I need and many things I want. And right now I just want to push my flesh past this point and be where He wants me to be. Thanks for posting this. Dawn
Beautifully written. I can especially relate to the feeling numb part - there are whole days, weekends, weeks when all I want to do after work is come home to the internet and TV and numb my brain. Like a literal shot of Novacaine to the skull. I push Him away because I think I don't have time, I don't have the energy to invest, when I know He will give me the energy as soon as I take a tiny step forward.
I will say this: I've lived in Oregon my entire life and the weather here has some big pros: no humidity, no tornadoes, no earthquakes (maybe in 100 years?) , no hurricanes, no crazy heat or crazy cold. Cons: some flooding, rain 9 months a year :) But, absolutely beautiful, blue, warm, mild summers. Geography might not be the answer, but a calm climate can do wonders for the soul!
I love every single word you wrote, including riDONKulous. so often we look to the wrong places...why oh why?
thanks for sharing. i think i subconsciously do the same things as you do. what i need is contentment under good or bad conditions... it's something paul talks about, but i'm too tired right now to write anything coherent. so. have a good night sleep:)
I love the way you put this. How true it is...and I am the same way, all too often.
beautiful. I understand the ground hog day effect, the furniture moving, and the longing for something better, easier. Thanks for sharing.
So well written, I quoted you (with link love) on FB. This is where I am in life right now too, and I will pray for us both to muster up the gumption to look up and meet those compassionate Eyes we've been avoiding.
Great post! For me, it's traveling. And I can even justify it by desiring the mission trips! Sickening really, how I take my discontent and say, "If I could just join that group in China for a few weeks..." or "If I could just go to that orphanage in Haiti..."
Agreed! If we could only live constantly in the knowledge that Christ's work on the cross is enough, how satisfied and beautiful even the hardest days would be! Thanks for the encouragement.
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