Dealing with Restlessness - Final

Here are some of the steps He’s shown me to take in this direction:

The confusion and frustration brought on by my restlessness was largely due to the fact that I kept it all to myself. I bottled it up inside without sharing it with anyone. By nature, I’m not a particularly good communicator. I always look for an excuse to not be totally open, and even hope that people will eventually read my mind. This “hope” has never materialized. I know perfectly well that it’s my own pride that holds me back from being open and honest with others. Although I’m blessed to have a personal connection with the Lord, being honest with others about my restlessness has helped me a lot. God very often speaks to me through their advice and perspective.

It pays to come to the Lord with an open mind and without any will of my own, if I truly want to know what His highest and best will is. The abandoning of my own will is no easy task. This is why, during such times with the Lord when I’m earnestly seeking His will, I repeat Jesus’ words from Gethsemane over and over: “Nevertheless, not my will, but Thine be done.”3 Each time I repeat it, I ask Him to help me truly mean it, so that it’s not merely a “vain repetition.”

I may come to the Lord seeking answers to my restlessness and not receive all the answers I’m hoping for. I may only receive part of what I’m requesting. At one point I felt like I’d run into a stone wall and didn’t know where to go. Why couldn’t the Lord just give me the whole kit and caboodle instead of merely part of the revelation? The answer was found in my devotional reading for that day, which was based on Habakkuk 2:3: “For the vision is yet for an appointed time… Though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.” The indication could not have been clearer. The answers I was still searching for would come to me at God’s appointed time. All I had to do was wait. Since then I’ve received some answers which arrived just when God knew I needed them. They could not have come any sooner or any later.

For example, at that time I was writing many articles and submitting them to various websites. I found this very fulfilling, but I felt certain that it would soon lead to another step in my pursuit of writing. I just couldn’t quite put my finger on it. I’d always wanted to write a book, but had no idea what it would contain. However, just recently, after several more articles were written, I received the exciting idea, which was like a revelation to me, to take my articles and modify them so they take on the form of chapters, and combine them into one volume. This project is currently underway. This revelation gave me faith to continue waiting on the Lord and believing that my remaining questions would be answered in His perfect time.

Last but not least, I must learn to accept the rest that the Lord wants to give me. This is something I’m still working on mastering. It has proven most effective to tell the Lord over and over, “I accept the rest that You want to give me.” I keep saying this until it becomes part of me. Initially my heart and mind will protest. I’ll feel things creaking inside me as I try to reverse habitual thought patterns and accept God’s thoughts. But the peace I experience in the end makes it worth it all.

If you are looking for rest to your soul, rest assured that it can be found. He longs to give it to us. We just have to willingly accept and receive it.

3 Luke 22:42.
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WE HAVE TO RECEIVE THE GIFTS OF GOD BY THE EFFORT OF FAITH.

God wants you to ask so He can give your faith part of the credit and He can reward your faith with an answer. He wants you to share in both the credit and the benefits, even though it is all by grace and it all came from Him to begin with--Heaven's bank of exchange, Your burdens for His blessings!




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