Restless Autumn

Restless- characterized by or showing inability to remain at rest; unquiet or uneasy, as a person, the mind, or the heart
The trees are restless before Winter. Their leaves change colors and their branches dance to and fro.
The cool air sweeps away the heat and beckons us to dance to the rhythm of the changing winds.
I feel the cold air tickle the nerve endings in my body to tell me to, "Get moving!" and I find myself ready to run!

This is a season of restlessness reflecting our own inability to remain at rest.
I feel restless as well...life is changing, day by day, moment to moment. We get restless when we feel change occurring in our lives and so often we do not know what to do with it. In a split second our eyes dart from the beauty of the colors dancing around us to the fears ahead of us. Anxiety eats at our souls and turns the beauty of change into uncertainty. Every day we have the opportunity to fear the test tomorrow, the float deadline in a week, the conversation you might have to have with your friend or boyfriend, the next look in the mirror and sense of insecurity...whether small or large matters, we all place tiny seeds of fear within ourselves and we often times do not even know they are there. These earthly desires to have a good body, or be the best student, or to be the most outgoing, or have the most good looking boyfriend, these are all desires of which nothing in this world can really satisfy.

St. Augustine said "Our hearts will always be restless until they rest in God."

Think of the ocean and her waves tossing back and forth or wheat fields ready for harvest as they shimmer from a distance, not the fear of the storm coming or the harvesters shears. Although they may appear restless and shaking in fear, these powers of nature are calling us to see beauty and majesty, not anxiety or fear. They whisper to us this greater knowledge of the Holy.

"I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice?" CS Lewis

So what do we do with these desires of which nothing in this world can satisfy?
We must always be aware and on guard not to make these things idols in our lives. All things created by God are good in themselves, but it is when we make them the object of our desire that they turn into things which God did not intend.

"With our loss of the sense of majesty has come the further loss of religious awe and consciousness of the divine Presence. We have lost our spirit of worship and our ability to withdraw inwardly to meet God in adoring silence. Modern Christianity is simply not producing the kind of Christian who can appreciate or experience the life in the Spirit." -AW Tozer

How do we recreate this sense of awe?
‘Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. if I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same.’