Beware of Restlessness

Recently I discovered that there seems to be a spirit of restlessness, and an uprooting of what is familiar. It’s like a shaking-up. In some cases, I think that people have been deprived of their family and social groups for so long that they are making some major decisions. A friend I’ve known for a long time is moving a fair distance away to be near her son and grandson. Someone else I talked to is off work and has decided to not go back. She found that it is nice to be at home rather than commuting back and forth to the city each day. Another friend retired from a job he really enjoyed, but working in the medical field held less appeal than before due to the increased risk of the pandemic.

In many ways, these changes will be good, and likely needed. Perhaps there was no other way for people to be uprooted when they truly needed to make a change in their life. Others need the peace and quiet of home and to take the time to decide their next move in life. I pondered these changes, and wonder if some people will move away or change the course of their life out of a sense of restlessness? Are their changes God-inspired, or are they merely running away, unable to travel, and so the next best thing is to move away?

It is this restlessness I want to talk about. I know that for many people who have been forced to stay at home, it has not been a great experience. There are widows and single people who relied on their social groups and outings to give great meaning to their life. For many people, being involved was a welcome get-away, and a necessary cathartic experience away from the loneliness of being at home alone, with no one else to share life with. Some people have gone out as much as possible to avoid their family or spouse. Perhaps they haven’t been getting along, and now they are home together and need to work things out. This is a very challenging time for many people.

Since this all happened, I have looked at every possible way to handle the difficulties it presents — loneliness, depression, lack of purpose, restlessness, grief, and so on. Only one answer has ever made any sense, and that is that without God, there is little hope. He alone is the answer to our restlessness.

I’d like to share that for many years I struggled with discontentment and I was very restless. I simply could not settle down, and it made it very hard for me to fulfill my life-calling to write. I needed to be out all the time, socializing like a social butterfly. It was everything I could do to work for eight hours a day at my desk job. Somehow, I managed to get through it, but it was so opposite my true interests, I didn’t enjoy it very much. I hung onto it because it did pay well and I had great benefits, weekends off, lots of holidays, and it paid my way through university. As I kept struggling with restlessness and boredom, one day, I realized that life wasn’t geared to fit my ideals, but I had to fit into the most un-ideal situation possible in order to faithfully fulfill God’s plan for my life.

I realized that it wasn’t about my own fulfillment, but it was about a “calling.” God had called me to work at my government desk job, and not to work as a full-time writer and author like I do now. I often wondered why. It all had to do with the calling He put on my life when I was 19. As I sat at my boring desk job (I worked in financial services, a far cry from my exciting career in journalism, and later creative photography and art), I often asked God why I was working there. The answer He gave was always the same - “You’re here for the people who are lost, to be a light to them.” I was there to befriend my co-workers, pray for their needs, and whenever the Spirit led, to perhaps witness to them. Did you know that Jesus would have died even for one person in the whole world to give them a chance to be saved from the wrath to come? Think about this the next time you wonder why you are working at a boring job or doing a mundane volunteer job because it’s where you’ve been called. God needs you there. Chances are, you’re the only one He could put in that position to do His bidding. What an incredible privilege and honour to serve the King of Kings and Lord of Lords wherever He has placed us.

I can think of many times I struggled with restlessness, which I learned was really a way to avoid facing up to whatever it was I was running away from. Before I was married, it had to do with being lonely. I spent many years as a single and I married later in life, so this was not a temporary problem for me. Sometimes when I would feel lonely, I’d go for drives. I have a love of history, and I decided to visit as many museums as I could. Weekends I’d go to neighboring towns and visit their museums. It would keep my mind occupied for that time and it would stave off the loneliness.

Years after I was married, I realized I had never dealt with the restlessness in my life, and the need to get away, or run away. One difficult winter, many things were falling apart in my life, and I was very sad and restless. My mother-in-law was dying of cancer, my beloved cat of 15 years had died, and three of our beautiful jack pine trees had to come down. It changed the lodge-like cozy feel of our cottage/house that we loved. My husband was spending more and more time in the city after work to see his ailing mom. It was a particularly cold winter, and many people I knew were taking trips, but we couldn’t get away. I remember sitting by the fireplace and watching our two new black sibling kittens playing. I cried out to God that I needed a change. I wanted to get an apartment in the city I had lived in for so much of my life. Our families lived there, my husband wouldn’t have to commute and burn out from the daily drive, there was more to do, I could teach at the schools if I wanted, we could go out for coffee at any hour of the day or night, have a bigger pick of churches, etc.

I distinctly remember the conversation I had with God. He asked me a pointed question to this effect: “If I never give you this desire of your heart, will you be willing to stay here in your cottage and be content no matter what?”

I had to think about it. Then I realized He was really saying that I needed to be thankful for what I had. And that if I wasn’t thankful now with what He had so generously provided, I’d never learn to be content and thankful with more. Please write that down! It is so true! Every word of it is true!

In the not-too-distant past, you may have used travel as an escape. You so much do not want to face life at home or in your community beyond a fleeting time, you were able to use travel as a quick get-away. Now you can’t. Perhaps travel has become like an addiction. I am so thankful I learned how to wait on God when everything in me was restless and I wanted to move to the city. I wanted trips. I wanted the financial freedom to do what I wanted when I wanted. But the doors wouldn’t open for a time. I had to learn to be thankful and content.

Many times, when you start to be thankful to God, He fills you with a sense of joy and peace. That’s what He did for me when I wanted to move back to the city. And it’s like when you quit drinking or smoking. There’s a period of time that the temptation is so great to go back to your addiction that you want to give in. This is when you RESIST the temptation, pray and ask God to help you through it, and watch what happens. He will help you let the feeling pass, and you will gain that peace and contentment that no amount of traveling or moving will ever give you.

I want to leave you with these verses:

1Ti 6:6  But godliness with contentment is great gain.

Psa 100:4  Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise; be thankful to Him, and bless His name.

Col 3:15  And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which you also are called in one body, and be thankful.

Php 4:6  Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.

Php 4:7  And the peace of God which passes all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.