Have you ever had that feeling of dissatisfaction and restlessness, when you want something, there’s something missing, but you really don’t know quite what it is? Sometimes one finds oneself looking into the fridge, pondering what it is that will satisfy that inner craving and emptiness. Chocolate might do it, or a glass of something…. 

Sometimes it’s slightly more existential, and there’s that sense of dissatisfaction with life even though one is surrounded by so many luxuries. “What is it that I want? All I know is that somehow there’s something missing. If only I could figure out what it is, then I could find contentment and be at peace within myself!”

Saint Augustine had an answer to that, and one of his famous prayers has the line “our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee, O Lord.“
That sense of dissatisfaction and restlessness is an innate part of the human condition, along with the tendency to make huge mistakes and quite frequently to fail to learn from them! We search through life for meaning, for satisfaction, for that magical thing that will give us peace. But so often I think we look in the wrong places. Our hearts know that we will never find true and lasting satisfaction in material things, though they are indeed wonderful and necessary. It’s good to remember that the pleasures of the world are created by God for our enjoyment! The problem is that we tend to make those pleasures into gods and forget the God who created them and us.

In the end, we need to find something that is truly lasting rather than fleeting. And the answer to our inner cravings and dissatisfaction, are deep need for that sense of peace and serenity, can only be found within ourselves.

Of course I know that you know all of this, and indeed most of us do! The problem is, we’re also very bad at actually putting it into practice. Mindfulness and meditation help enormously, as does the practice of being present in the moment.  But I wonder if perhaps it could be made even simpler than that. Rather than yet another technique we must master or course we must go on, perhaps Jesus sums it up very simply: He blesses the children and says, theirs is the kingdom of God. I think his point is much more metaphorical than literal, and centres on a child’s ability to be fully present in the moment, to trust absolutely in the provision that a loving parent will make for them, and to find joy, fascination, and contentment in the oddest of things. 

Something so simple as far too simple for us adults. As we grow up, we learn life as ever more complicated and simple answers are distrusted for being “too simple“. Surely it can’t be as easy as that we say to ourselves. Perhaps with God it can.

Perhaps that’s exactly the point. Perhaps if we can allow our souls to rest in God, then everything else will simply fall into place. However it feels that this simple task is perhaps the hardest, and one that takes a lifetime to do. 

Talisker

Photo by Max Harlynking on Unsplash