WHY WE ARE SO RESTLESS

So many of can’t seem to sit still. We have to be on the move. We’re looking for something but can’t seem to put our finger on just exactly what it is that we are looking for. Then, even if we think we have found it, we soon discover that that really wasn’t what we had in mind. The reason for that is that we really didn’t know what we had in mind. We simply thought that there was something missing in our lives and we had to go and search for it until we found it.

There seems to be an eternal restlessness in us. It’s as if we are searching for that biblical Garden of Eden where we will have all that we think we need or desire and then will be at peace with the world and, most importantly, with ourselves. And so we are restless. St. Augustine says that our hearts are restless until they rest in God, meaning, on the one hand, resting in eternity with God.

However, it is what is on the other hand that we seem to miss in our search for what it is that we think we are missing in this life, in the here and now. We are to be at rest, if you will, in this life and not just in the life to come, to be at rest with our God now and not until we are with God eternally. So how do we find this rest? How do we find peace of mind and heart now?

Barbara Brown Taylor in her wonderful book An Altar in the World finds, I think, an answer to our restlessness. She writes:  “All we lack is a willingness to imagine that we already have everything we need. The only thing missing is our consent to be where we are.” We already have all we need because we do not need much. We want much but we do not need much. And it is this desire to fill our wants that causes so much restlessness in our daily lives.

We know that, of course. Deep down inside the depths of our heart and soul we know we have all we need. So why is it that we can’t convince our heads of what is in our hearts? Why can’t we understand that where we are right now is where we should be right now? For as long as we think we should be somewhere else, wherever that somewhere else is and whatever it consists in, we will be restless.

That does not mean that we like where we are at the moment. There are many moments in our lives that last longer than a moment, times when we are in pain, when we are suffering from whatever. What it does mean is that we have to live in those moments, deal with what life has brought us, so that we can move on. We have to “consent to be where we are” now so that we can move on to where we need to be tomorrow.

One day at a time: that is how God asks us to live this life. We will deal with tomorrow when tomorrow comes. As for today, we have all we need in order to get through this day. That is God’s promise to us. No need to be restless. Be at peace.