Lessons from a World Cup Coach Potatoe

Well, if you are willing to take in a thought from a guy who starts his mornings by eating breakfast, watching soccer, drinking coffee, eating more breakfast and getting stuck in wikipedia loops about Christian existentialism then read on, otherwise, I'm not sure I have much to offer you at this point!

For those that might still be with me, I will say this, only because it seems to have been proved to me time and time again.  First I will attempt to describe a situation which could be felt by different people in vastly different ways but which fundamentally revolves around restlessness.  It may be a time or day in which you feel like you must change your schedule, you must get out and do something different, or you must be at an event or something socially acceptable as fun.  Maybe you just must see some friend of yours, any of them.  It could be loneliness, dissatisfaction, boredom, or an suffocating familiarity.  I think universally it involves the urge to just do something, which I am not saying is altogether unhealthy or inappropriate, but I think it can be a hint at something larger.  All that to say, the action that I would recommend is to not frantically pursue the urges.  In the rare times when I am able to, against all intuition, use these moments to take a step back and away, I can gain some perspective.  Again, at even rarer times, I can use this retreat to try and focus on God, to plead God to show me his person, to implore him for greater understanding of his love, and to ask for peace.  Often after much (sometimes seemingly fruitless) effort put in this direction, returning to the day's activities, it is later when I begin to notice a change.  Almost always it involves a heightened sense of creativity, a feeling of peace, contentment, and joy at experiencing some of the mysteries of Christ.  And thats that.  God reveals his heart and his peace to people in different ways I am sure.  I speak to this because I feel like I've experienced the correlation.  So try it sometime, the next instance you have where you feel along the lines of which described above.  But I can't just say do what I do, because its possible that a simple act of service or contemplation-in-activity causes you to feel closer to God, but then I'd say try that too.