Restless

. . . My heart took delight in all my work, and this was the reward for all my labor. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind (Ecclesiastes 2:10-11).

What we delight in one day, we despise the next. Go figure.

We put in the time and get the degree only to realize that our study earned us a piece of framed gothic script. The real world grades on a different scale. We’re not through with hustling to stay at the head of the class.

We get the dream job and find it’s not so dreamy. After a while we start to look longingly at a different place or a different title. We toy with the resume, casually scan journals and papers for “the next chapter” of our lives. Tuition and mortgage keep us anchored, but a part of us envies Tom Hanks’ character in Cast Away.

The same happens with the things we own. We grow tired of what we have because we’re convinced there’s something better, faster, more improved, better located. Sadly, relationships are not immune. We interpret well worn familiarities as incompatibility. We start believing the lie that someone else is out there who can truly understand and love us. We are restless, literally without rest. Like Solomon, we’re fickle. We take delight in “all that our hands have done” on one day, and then finding those very same things meaningless the next.

The rest we seek, the rest that seems so absent in Ecclesiastes, isn’t found externally. We don’t obtain it by doing something different or going somewhere different or meeting someone new. It’s worth noting that when Jesus said “come to me all who are weary and I will give you rest,” he went on to say clearly that in coming to him we would find rest for the soul (Matt. 11:29).

Rest is a spiritual reality before it is a physical reality. It is an inward condition that manifests itself outwardly – in our demeanor, in our work, in our families. Maybe successful people aren’t the ones who work hard, but the ones who can work hard and all the while be at rest.

Prayer: Gracious God, remind me that nothing will happen today that will catch you by surprise. I praise you that are sufficient for my every need and every yearning. Teach me to rest in you. Amen.