restless

For my class on 1 Corinthians, we have to do a spiritual retreat based on chapter 13. Yesterday I went to the beach to do my retreat. The first section  was a time of meditation and silence before God. I went to a beach and looked for seashells, but it was not a good beach for sitting, so I went up the coast about two miles and went to another beach. I walked around, skipped some stones into the water, and played with the sand for a bit. It was so hard for me to sit still! I couldn't focus, so I went to the nearby Starbucks and got a cup of tea. Once I had finally settled down, this is what I wrote.

I am realizing how restless I am in my heart. Recently I realized (thanks to Lauri) that all of the moving around that I have done in the past few years has been due to the restlessness in my heart. I don’t know if now I am learning to control that restlessness, or if it is going away, but I think that the evidence points towards the former. During this project, I have been searching for the ideal situation. I have gone to three different beaches, and now I am at Starbucks, determined to stay here until I finish. And its not like this is totally unlike me. Usually I spend more time thinking about doing something and preparing to do it and trying to figure out the best way to do it, that I end up running out of time to do it properly and effectively. I don't know if this restlessness is due, as i just mentioned, to my longing for the ideal situation, or if it is because I really just want to be doing something else (living overseas), but I think that both are true, and neither are okay. 

If I am longing to go overseas, and I have this idea that only when I am among an unreached people group will I be happy. If that continues to be my mindset, then I will never be happy. The only thing that will ever truly satisfy me is God himself. 

And this ideal-ness that I am pursuing points to two things. One: I am longing for future glory. I know that this is not the way that things are supposed to be, but I need to learn to live in the reality that this is a fallen world, and that people and situations are not going to be perfect (It goes back to the satisfaction thing- I cannot look for satisfaction in people and situations; I have to let the grace of God satisfy me.). 

Two: it does not really point to this, but it leads me to this conclusion: I am missing out on so much because I am waiting for the perfect everything to come along. For instance, for a while now, I have been praying for a mentor. I am so unwilling to settle for anything less than Jesus himself, and so I am missing out on all of the wonderful wisdom and guidance that the women who are already in my life have. Baaah. Well, today is a good time to start living in these realities. Thank you Father for graciously allowing me to see these things.