Restless Hearts Find Their Rest in God
mmalanga | January 12, 2007The Traveler’s Advisory
Friday 12 January 2007
When Rick Warren began his best-selling book, The Purpose Life with the statement, “It’s not about you,” he simply put in popular language what Augustine wrote circa 400 A.D., “You made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in You.” The same idea is expressed in the first question and answer in The Shorter Catechism of the Westminster Confession of Faith:
What is the chief end of man?
Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.
Still, Augustine’s statement remains the preeminent expression of why we are here. God made us for Himself. We have been made to worship God. And it is He who awakens us to delight in His praise—to glorify Him and enjoy Him forever. And yet it is the last part of Augustine’s statement that remains most memorable, “our hearts are restless until they find their rest in You.”
Now, we Reformed types will debate whether or not unregenerate humanity wants to praise God. However, when we examine his statement from the perspective that our hearts are restless until they find their rest in God, Augustine’s point becomes clear. At the heart of Adam and Eve’s rebellion was the desire to replace the worship of God with the worship of self. In believing the lie that they would become like God by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the Garden couple became enslaved by that which they were created to rule. Instead of giving their hearts rest, their self-rule and its new religion of self placed them and us in a cauldron of rebellious restlessness, anxiety, and despair. Once the truth that God made us for Himself is forgotten, the lie that it is all about us becomes infinitely more attractive and, unfortunately for us, infinitely more deadly.
God has made us for Himself. We have been made to worship God. And it is He who awakens us to delight in His praise. Augustine is correct. Humanity wants to praise God, but since sin has so twisted our nature and skewed our perspective, we do not worship Him. Rather, we worship what He has created. We worship ourselves. We worship nature. We make idols of created things rather than worshiping the God who created them and us.
God must awaken us to delight in His praise. His Holy Spirit must arrest us from the frantic restlessness caused by an idolatrous heart (Romans 8.15-17; Ephesians 1.13-14). It is only as God the Father draws us to Himself (John 6.44) that we will find the rest our hearts so desperately long for. And once we are drawn to the Father we find rest for our hearts as well as for our souls (Matthew 11.27-30).
So may you find rest for your heart this New Year. May you freely surrender that which makes you restless. May you joyfully let go of the delusion that it is all about you, that temporary, terminal things can satisfy the eternal, everlasting desire for rest God has planted in your heart. May you discover the joy of a God-awakened delight in His praise. May you discover the peace that accompanies those who resolve to glorify Him and enjoy Him forever. May you explore what it means to know He made us for Himself and our hearts are truly restless until they find their true rest in Him. You think about that. MM
