Morning Reflections

This morning as I was in the shower I began to realize all the changes going on in my life. About a year and a half ago a good friend of mine called from NY. She and I hadn't spoken in a long time and she asked me what was new. At that time, nothing was new; same apartment, same job, same church and so on. At the time I remembered feeling almost embarrassed that my life had become so lethargic. Fast forward to the present and I have had major changes occur in my life.

It started last May when I left Faith Church which eventually led me to Barefoot. This change has been a very positive one and through it I have made a lot of new friends and essentially I have an entirely different peer group than I did a year ago. Then a few months ago, I bought a house which was a huge change for me after living in the same apartment for 5 years. On top of that, I now have a roommate and also another friend of mine who rents the upstairs apartment. My latest change is the laser eye surgery which was amazing and makes me feel like a different person.

What I realized this morning is that while I love all these changes in my life, I still have a bout of restlessness that creeps in. I used to think that this restlessness was a result of my lack of change but that was obviously not the case. Now, I wonder if my feelings of unrest arrive from having the same job for the past 9 years. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate my job and enjoy it more often than not, but my zeal and enthusiasm for it have waned in the last few years. Maybe my uneasiness comes from that fact that I will turn 34 later this month and I am not married and have no significant hopes of a relationship on the horizon.

Lately, I have been rereading my favorite author Henri Nouwen. His writing consist largely of his inner struggle and his journey to find peace in this world through prayer and contemplative living. His writings often encourage me and put words to my inner conflicts that I cannot articulate. But how could a man with such spiritual insight spend his entire life battling the same type of restlessness and discouragement that I often feel? Shouldn't there be a secret to reaching a point in one's life where you surpass those feelings that haunt us and hold us back in our life's journey? Maybe not.

Maybe the point is that regardless of all the good changes and good people in my life, I still ultimately need to the Lord to bring me peace. Lasting peace doesn't come from buying a house, or having a strong network of friends or even finding the perfect church. It has to come from something deeper than that. And perhaps we are not even supposed to achieve a permanent peace but we are instead required to seek it out everyday. This approach makes sense when I look back and measure my relationship with God in times of relative peace versus my relationship with him in times of uneasiness. The more restless I am the more I feel compelled to call on his name. So for that reason alone, I am grateful for my restlessness as it serves as a daily reminder of my dependence upon the Lord.