Restless

Today, I am "restless" for a very good reason.  In a few days, I will journey into a silent retreat... Yeah, me silent?  Now while you may doubt my ability to keep quiet, my heart is ready to make a decision to serve.  I am in my final few weeks of preparation towards becoming a Deacon in the Roman Catholic Church.  This upcoming week offers me the challenge and the promise that come from listening to God in a whisper. (1 Kings 19: 5-13)  So for now, I ask for prayers, for my heart is restless.  But I'll bet this is true for you too, for you have decisions to make this week, and you have a journey ahead of you as well.  We all have to keep moving, and listening, and adjusting, and adapting, and listening some more, and so on... So I am praying with you as I offer this:

First, the Great Prayer from St. Augustine

St. Augustine's Confessions (Lib 1,1-2,2.5,5: CSEL 33, 1-5)

Great are you, O Lord, and exceedingly worthy of praise; your power is immense, and your wisdom beyond reckoning. And so we men, who are a due part of your creation, long to praise you – we also carry our mortality about with us, carry the evidence of our sin and with it the proof that you thwart the proud. You arouse us so that praising you may bring us joy, because you have made us and drawn us to yourself, and our heart is unquiet until it rests in you.

Grant me to know and understand, Lord, which comes first. To call upon you or to praise you? To know you or to call upon you? Must we know you before we can call upon you? Anyone who invokes what is still unknown may be making a mistake. Or should you be invoked first, so that we may then come to know you? But how can people call upon someone in whom they do not yet believe? And how can they believe without a preacher?

But scripture tells us that those who seek the Lord will praise him, for as they seek they find him, and on finding him they will praise him. Let me seek you then, Lord, even while I am calling upon you, and call upon you even as I believe in you; for to us you have indeed been preached. My faith calls upon you, Lord, this faith which is your gift to me, which you have breathed into me through the humanity of your Son and the ministry of your preacher.

How shall I call upon my God, my God and my Lord, when by the very act of calling upon him I would be calling him into myself? Is there any place within me into which my God might come? How should the God who made heaven and earth come into me? Is there any room in me for you, Lord, my God? Even heaven and earth, which you have made and in which you have made me – can even they contain you? Since nothing that exists would exist without you, does it follow that whatever exists does in some way contain you?

But if this is so, how can I, who am one of these existing things, ask you to come into me, when I would not exist at all unless you were already in me? Not yet am I in hell, after all but even if I were, you would be there too; for if I descend into the underworld, you are there. No, my God, I would not exist, I would not be at all, if you were not in me. Or should I say, rather, that I should not exist if I were not in you, from whom are all things, through whom are all things, in whom are all things? Yes, Lord, that is the truth, that is indeed the truth. To what place can I invite you, then, since I am in you? Or where could you come from, in order to come into me? To what place outside heaven and earth could I travel, so that my God could come to me there, the God who said, I fill heaven and earth?

Who will grant it to me to find peace in you? Who will grant me this grace, that you should come into my heart and inebriate it, enabling me to forget the evils that beset me and embrace you, my only good? What are you to me? Have mercy on me, so that I may tell. What indeed am I to you, that you should command me to love you, and grow angry with me if I do not, and threaten me with enormous woes? Is not the failure to love you woe enough in itself?

Alas for me! Through your own merciful dealings with me, O Lord my God, tell me what you are to me. Say to my soul,I am your salvation. Say it so that I can hear it. My heart is listening, Lord; open the ears of my heart and say to my soul, I am your salvation. Let me run towards this voice and seize hold of you. Do not hide your face from me: let me die so that I may see it, for not to see it would be death to me indeed.

Second, here's a song called Restless by Audrey Assad

Restless 

by Audrey Assad

You dwell in the songs that we are singing,

Rising to the Heavens, rising to Your heart, Your heart.

Our praises filling up the spaces

In between our frailty and everything You are

You are the keeper of my heart

And I'm restless, I'm restless

'Til I rest in You, 'til I rest in You

I am restless, I'm restless

'Til I rest in You, 'til I rest in You

Oh God, I wanna rest in You

Oh, speak now for my soul is listening

Say that You have saved me, whisper in the dark, the dark.

'Cause I know You're more than my salvation

Without you I am hopeless, tell me who You are

You are the keeper of my heart

You are the keeper of my heart

And I'm restless, I'm restless

'Til I rest in You, 'til I rest in You

I am restless, I'm restless

'Til I rest in You, 'til I rest in You, Oh

I wanna rest in You

Still my heart, hold me close

Let me hear, a still small voice

Let it grow, let it rise

Into a shout, into a cry

Still my heart, hold me close

Let me hear, a still small voice

Let it grow, let it rise

Into a shout, into a cry

And I am restless, I'm restless

'Til I rest in You, let me rest in You

And I am restless, so restless

'Til I rest in You, 'til I rest in You, Oh God

Let me rest in You.