Permanence?

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.