Restless Days

Previously written

Restless days. We've all had them. They are the days when your mind all but refuses to focus on what is at hand and where everything you know you should do seem pointless. If you are like me, it also means many longing glances out of the window, wishing you were out climbing some far off hills, enjoying a quite day with nature and your quickly moving thoughts.

 

What do we do with restless days? Days when we struggle to find contentment in anything at all. When everything we have doesn't seem like enough, and what we don't have looks unrealistically green and inviting?

 

Turn our thoughts to praise. At least, that is something I have found to calm the agitated heart and mind. When I have no rest it is easy to get caught up in what I don't have and longing for those things. On those days, usually later rather than sooner, I am reminded that there is nothing that fills the longing heart more fully then the Lord. Spending time counting my blessings and praising His name has a way of grounding me. What I wanted seems to fade behind that which I have been given. I deserve none of it, and yet it was freely given to me.

 

My restless day is ending well. A heart full of praise, hope, and peace. A sense of knowing that I'm right where I need to be.

Rest?

"Do we never hear the question "What is the harm of it?" asked about reading certain books, following certain pursuits, taking our recreation in certain ways? Perhaps… we need change of thought and rest of brain. "What is the harm of the latest novel, even if it happens to be rather unprofitable?" And we (who have not time to read one out of a thousand of the real books that have been written) spend a precious hour by deliberate choice over something not worthwhile; and when our immediate world interrupts us, breaking in upon us with some call, do we find that we come back to it with quite undistracted gladness?" ~Amy Carmichael

When I read this quote I replaced  "real books" with "real book." With the Bible. How often when I "need" change of thought or rest of brain to I turn to things other than the Bible? Other than God.

 

 I read fiction, watch a movie, chat with friends, write in my journal. Those things aren't perhaps bad, but are they really the rest my soul desires?

I realize that I have been building a habit of turning my brain off, of avoiding the things which trouble me instead of taking them to God. Instead of seeking His Word. True rest is in trusting Him with the unseen, not running from it.

 

I give thanks to the God of grace who is continually working to conform me into His likeness!