After almost a solid month of
Army training followed by some readjustment, I realized how much I've missed
this blog so I decided to share a little reflection that hit me last night in
prayer.
I'd wager that there is not a
person on this earth - past, present, or future - who does not know the bitter
taste of anxiety or even fear when change is in the air. We all know what it
can feel like when our circumstances are altered. And even when it's for the
better, the shadow of fear can make its presence known.
Why is this so? Are we hard-wired
to assume that most if not all changes spell discomfort or hardship of some
sort? Why can news of a new job or a move or even a baby on the way conjure up
both elation and panic?
I suspect that this is all
evidence of our deep desire for permanence. It's strange when you think about
it. Every person on earth is seemingly incapable of being satisfied, no matter
the circumstances - at least not in this life. There is never enough money,
enough titles, enough achievements. There is always a deficit of friends,
experiences, conversations, encounters. We never seem to scratch the surface of
our desires for ultimate purpose, meaning, true and abiding love.
We are like beings who exist for
eternal joy and fulfillment, and yet we are each stretched out across a
lifetime of transition and change. We are like spiritual nomads who, no matter
how much we try to ignore or alter the truth, are never truly at home during our
sojourn on earth.
In the end, that void can only be
filled by the One who put it there in the first place. God made every single
one of us for Himself, and that empty restlessness we all experience is not
proof of meaningless pain and endless suffering ahead. It is in fact a gift
from the hand of God. It's there so that we'll pay attention to it and in the
midst of the darkness we'll find the Risen Lord who so deeply desires to bring
us to what Father Robert Barron has dubbed, "a higher pitch of existence."
So let's try to set fear and
anxiety aside today! Ask the Lord to help you see him in every corner of your
day - He won't let you down.
