March 31, 2008

• RESTLESS MONDAY

  I have been worried about my mom.  We are called not to worry, but that did not stop me at midnight last night.  I was wondering what is going to happen when she is out of the nursing home.  Will they send her home too early, will she be ok alone, do I have to go there everyday and tend to her?  I was a little mad also.  I have my own life planned out here.  Why is this all happening Lord?

  Then I remembered Elisabeth Elliot and her saying "do the next thing".  So I was looking up here past articles and found this gem.  Hope it helps anyone who is "restless" also.

   

  The book of Ecclesiastes was written by a very

  restless man. He was fed up with his life and

  everything had become meaningless to him.

  He wrote, “I hated life.… All of it is meaningless,

  a chasing after the wind. I hated all the

  things I had toiled for under the sun

  (Ecclesiastes 2:17-18).

  Do you find yourself in the same boat? Is

  there some work that seems so pointless to

  you that you find yourself doing it distractedly

  because you are fed up with doing it and you

  wish you were somewhere else?

  We quote St. Augustine: “Our hearts are

  restless until they rest in Thee.” But do we

  live it out? Do we not tend instead to live, like

  the godless world around us, as if our perpetual

  restlessness is more or less normal, assuming

  that our lives are supposed to be a series of

  struggles to achieve “closure”? Subconsciously,

  we rephrase the quote: “My heart is restless

  until it rests at the end of this current effort.

  Until then, naturally I will be agitated.”

  Think back over yesterday. Did somebody

  upset you? (your spouse or your children or

  the driver in front of you on the highway, perhaps?)

  Did you become frustrated about your

  own failure to accomplish some work? Were

  you disgusted with your boss? Were you worried

  about a medical problem?

  What were you worried about last

  Wednesday? Did the worrying do you any

  good? You know it didn’t. Worrying is forbidden

  (read Matthew 6:25, Philippians 4:6,

  Psalm 37). It is useless, a colossal waste of

  time. Still, we carry on as if it’s unavoidable.

  Rest is a divine gift. But entering into rest is

  a lesson that all of us must learn. Can you

  accept this moment, just this one, trusting

  Him and becoming still before Him? Can you

  do it when you are in a traffic jam, becoming

  tardier by the minute for an appointment? It is

  God’s appointment for you—sitting there

  breathing exhaust fumes, learning to calm

  your soul by acknowledging that He is in

  charge of every detail of your life and that

  everything that happens to you has come

  through the hedge of His love.

  There is always time enough to do the will

  of God. The great thing is to make our planning

  subject to God’s perfect plan, laying our

  agendas at His feet and asking Him to help us

  choose wisely. All of us have duties. How

  gratefully and calmly we carry them out will

  indicate how we have obeyed Him.

  Someone I love was going through a

  divorce. When she heard that her husband had

  gone to court, it was next to impossible for her

  to rest in the Lord and wait patiently for the

  outcome. Over and over, she realized that she

  was fretting anew, losing her peace. With

  God’s grace she was able, moment by

  moment, to lay her burden at His feet. Step by

  step, asking for God’s help, putting her trust in

  Him over and over, she proved that He

  Himself is the road to peace and the gateway

  to joy.

  “I have put my trust in You” (Psalm 143:8).

  Put is an active verb and trust is a purposeful,

  not passive, choice. I may have to combine

  active trusting with taking myself by the

  scruff of the neck to undertake an unpleasant

  task. I may have to decide to terminate a

  pleasant activity to which I resorted in my agitation.

  (“I just need a break.”) I may have to

  re-do a project that I ruined in my restless

  haste. I may have to apologize for words spoken

  out of anxiety.

  Eventually, the restless Teacher who wrote

  Ecclesiastes discovered how to be happy. “It is

  good and proper for a man to find satisfaction in

  his toilsome labor under the sun during the few

  days of life. . . . God enables him to enjoy them,

  to accept his lot and be happy in his work—this

  is a gift of God” (Ecclesiastes 5:18-19).

  • 1:25 pm
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