RESTLESSNESS

     Restlessness.

     As your eyes glance over the word, do you find you've shifted in your seat already?  Does it cause you to feel flutters of caution inside?  None of us like to experience restlessness, and yet it seems unavoidable at times -- what's important is what we do with those feelings.


     Restlessness can come upon us furiously, like a tidal wave out of the ocean or it can creep up on us almost silently, till we look around and wonder how we came to feeling the way we do.

     It may be the job we're in seems to call out for freshness, or harder yet, the job we're not in calls out to pull us from the home and place us back in the workplace.  Reasons abound.

     Sometimes change is demanded of us, but often, we thrust change upon ourselves because of our restlessness.

     While one looks at change as a reason for the turmoil of restlessness, another will look at looming sameness with the same emotions of a caged lion.  We're created differently but most of us can relate to the chords within that are struck and cause us to itch wildly on the inside.

     What are we to do, when, not if, these feelings come?  Only one solution can be true -- we must press in to the only One who knows us completely, Father God who created us.  He alone has the answers for which our souls so restlessly search.

     As we look ahead to a whole new year, let's carefully lay out our restlessness and examine it as a doctor would a sickly child.  Take time.  Pray.  Ask the Lord what He has for us in the new year, not just inform Him of what we plan to do.

     God can use restlessness in our lives to draw us closer to Himself and do wonderful things in us and around us, but if we don't allow these stirrings to be used for that good, then there are many a dangerous path we could stumble down in the days ahead without the direction of our Father who loves us.

     Let us not be as the scriptures describe in Deuteronomy 28, where the people refused to listen to the voice of the Lord and couldn't find a place to rest.  It says no home could be found nor could they settle down...God gave them a restless heart, longing eyes and a homesick soul because they would not let God lead them.

     Find a quiet place and release your restlessness.  Peacefully wait and ask the Lord to bring His direction to your decisions.  To shed His light on a dark and windy path -- He has promised that when we seek Him, He WILL make our paths straight.  Then we can go into a new year with the confidence and rest that only He can bring.

"Now may the Lord of Peace

Himself give you peace at

all times and in every way."

II Thessalonians 3:16