September 10, 2024 Restlessness
Restlessness
I, Paul, have been sent on special assignment by Christ
as part of God’s master plan. Together with my friend Timothy,
I greet the Christians and stalwart followers of Christ who live in Colosse.
May everything good from God our Father be yours!
Colossians 1:1-2, Message
I was feeling that nagging restlessness again. That squirming-in-my-chair sensation that I came to recognize as a need for a change. In my younger years, it signaled the need to change jobs or roles that had grown too predictable and routine as I chomped at the bit to move on and up on the ladder to success. I searched and pushed for something bigger, better, or just different.
I inherited some of my understanding of such disquiet from my mother. While I watched her make a number of changes over the course of time, her restlessness intensified in the third third of her life. Mom went through a season of buying a house, remodeling and redecorating it to her liking, and then selling it out of a yearning for something bigger, better or just different. I know she moved six times in three years.
As I wrestled with discerning the source of this new uneasiness, I coincidentally (translation: God at work anonymously) came across Eugene Peterson’s contemplative reading on today’s passage. His words struck a chord in me: Deciding to follow Christ…
means that our histories have been invaded [by God]. Our thoughts, our acts, our feelings, our beginnings and our ends, our ambitions and our frustrations, our loves and our hates, our hopes and our fears – everything…has been invaded by the fullness of God in the person of Christ.*
Like Paul, followers of Christ are on a special assignment by Christ as part of God’s master plan. On reflection, since I was content where I was in my current roles and location, the restlessness was more likely what Peterson suggested as “the fullness of God in the person of Christ” in me, compelling me to a deeper relationship and how I am living it out with Him, wherever I am.
This time, the fidgeting was not about finding a new place to live but discovering a new way to live in this place.
Reflect: Where are you uncomfortable or dissatisfied at home, work, or in your neighborhood? How might this dissatisfaction or restlessness be the fullness of God compelling you to a new and deeper relationship with Him? How will you embrace that need to change in order to grow in your faith and relationship with Christ?
Prayer: Dear Lord Jesus, Thank you for the moment when you called me to follow you, called me by your grace into a whole new sphere of living. Help me to realize that this new sphere isn’t a new place to live but a new way to live. Show me the way, Jesus. Show me the way you lived in Galilee, the way you lived in Samaria, and the way you lived in Jerusalem. And grant me the grace to follow in your steps.*
By His Grace,
Gloria Ashby
Lay Leader
*Eugene H. Peterson, The Message Devotional Bible, p. 1402-1403.