One of the earliest doctors of the Church, St. Augustine of Hippo writes in his autobiography, titled Confessions, “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.” If you don’t know St. Augustine’s story, I encourage you to research it. If God can make him a Saint, and a doctor of our Church, there’s hope for all!

This is the quote which inspired the title of this blog. God wanted this name. I originally chose “Spiritually Restless”, but when searching for this domain, that name wasn’t available. So a friend of mine suggested searching for “The Spiritually Restless”. And of course, through divine providence, it was available. I thought to myself, this actually fits better, because the “The”, infers that there exists a group of people who are Spiritually Restless. I got to thinking about it and I knew there are a bunch of us out there. And if you’re anything like me, you are definitely included!

Experience:

A quick little background about myself: I am an oldest sibling which, along with many other traits, means I’m a rule follower. I am a CPA (Certified Public Accountant) which means that in my head, not only the numbers have to work, but everything in my life has to balance. And not surprising, I also have a type A personality (I guess it comes with the territory). So why is this relevant? For someone like me who reverted back to the faith in my mid 20’s, it’s been a challenge navigating my faith journey. Trying to discern what God wants me to do, how I should be growing in my faith, how to practice my faith in a secular world, how to weed out the sin in my life, how to better serve God in accordance with his will, how to be the father and husband God wants me to be, how to get my family to heaven in a world that’s been turned upside down (marry who you want, men are women and women are men, abort your child, etc.) has been difficult. The list goes on and the questions continue to pile. For a short period during my reversion, I struggled a lot with scrupulosity. I presume this is very common in people like me. But what I quickly learned is that was just a tactic of the devil and was actually pretty common amongst many of the faithful. This can all lead to spiritual restlessness. So this all-encompassing doubt, worry, fear, concern and anxiety of a faithful person, is what I call being Spiritually Restless. It’s a compilation of things and it can mean something different for everyone.

Reflection

We, the Catholic faithful, all want to do the right thing, which is what God wills for us, but it can be difficult to really gauge what that is and sometimes that road can look very scary. It’s something that is very difficult to do in this crazy world with the endless number of distractions. This why I think most of us will remain Spiritually Restless until, God willing, we reach the pearly gates and find true rest in Him, i.e. the time when we are in true union with God the Father. Now don’t get me wrong, I believe that this could happen for some during this earthly life, e.g. the living saints, and may happen to us sporadically through moments of our lives when we experience true peace and joy, but I believe for vast majority of us, it will cease to continuously happen until we are in union with God in heaven.

One thing I’ve learned and am certain about, is that everyone’s journey to heaven is different and we’re all at different points of that journey. For most of us, there will be a lot of adversity that we will face in this life, whether caused by our own sin or the sin of others, that will test us. There’s constant temptation. Let’s also not forget that there’s an ongoing spiritual battle taking place for our souls. I don’t bring this up to scare you or deter you, but this is the reality. All of this makes true rest in our Lord very challenging. This is the reason I created this blog, to share my journey with you. Knowing full well I’m not the only one who’s Spiritually Restless. Hopefully you can relate and we can learn and grow together in our faith, so one day, we can rest fully in our Lord.   

Prayer:

St. Augustine of Hippo, pray for us, that we may overcome the various forms of temptation in this world and continue on the straight and narrow path to heaven, where we can truly rest and have eternal joy and peace.

“Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you. Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would have not been at all. You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace.“

-St. Augustine of Hippo