The Searching

“One can never consent to creep when one feels the impulse to soar.”
                                                                                                           -Helen Keller

I have noticed a distinct pattern in my life over the years. Whenever a change of direction or expansion of opportunity is in the wind, restlessness descends. If I had actual wings of flight like a giant eagle, I would describe the sensation as breezes ruffling my otherwise tranquil feathers setting off an instinctual trigger deep inside, the desire to fly.

Now of course, not all of my restfulness is from a divine source and detecting the difference is an important part of the quest. Yet often God needs to heighten my awareness so I will not miss what He is preparing.

The searching begins. Unrelenting inquiries follow as I turn over every rock looking for the answer, the next move, the resolution to my inner conflict.

But God’s call to the heart does not abide under rocks of this earthen path. He speaks to our spirits by blowing winds of change under our passive wings and with this comes an unquenchable desire to mentally soar. And soar we must in order to accomplish what He envisions.

In the field of education, we call it “cognitive dissonance.” New knowledge disrupts the brain’s present comfort level inciting a frustration and longing to bring equilibrium back. In an attempt to find balance once again, the brain learns the new knowledge. I believe God has His own form of disequilibrium. He stirs us to move past what we already know and do.

When I think about the great heroes of faith, I doubt these mighty men and women set out on their quests only filled with serenity. Did the Apostle Paul not at times wrestle with anxiety as he entered another strange city filled with hostile foes? When he heard the prison door clank closed and the key turn in the lock, was there not a few moments of despair felt? I imagine his mind filled as much with questioning and pondering as with faith. Perhaps his letters to the churches provided the solace for processing his disequilibrium.

The Moravians sold themselves into slavery to become missionaries in foreign lands. Surely, their searching to follow coexisted with apprehension to go.

In the literary world, Dr. Seuss grew incensed with the widespread illiteracy in England and the boring readers provided in schools as a solution. I doubt he always felt peaceful when publishers rejected his book forty times. His best friend finally could not take watching the repeated rejection any longer and paid for the book’s publishing…and the rest is reading history.

We live in a culture that highly values comfort. Peace at any price becomes the goal of living. Yet when God has something more for us to do upon this earth, the pursuit seldom goes down without accompanying anxiety and restlessness needed to stir us from our complacency. Finally, we set out to follow the best we humanly can as walk out our destiny. And in our searching, we find our peace!