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Daniel 12:3

“Those who lead many to righteousness [will shine] like the stars for ever and ever.”

I thought I had seen the scenery below me before.  The pilot confirmed my suspicion:  My flight had been placed in a holding pattern.  That meant we were no longer making any forward progress; we were just continuing to circle the ground we had covered before.  The repeating scenery confirmed the pilot’s words.

You can get tired of being in a holding pattern really fast.  Especially if it’s your life that seems to be in a holding pattern.  Like a circling aircraft, you life does not seem to be standing still.  There is plenty of activity around you.  It’s just that you aren’t really going anywhere.  Spiritually, the ground looks all too familiar. And your soul wants more.  That’s because you were designed for more – much more.

King Soloman opened the door to that “more” in his personal “diary,” the Book of Ecclesiastes.  In a penetrating insight, Solomon noted that God “has set eternity in the heart of men” (Ecc. 3:11).

You and I have eternity in our hearts.  There is a dimension of you that cannot be fulfilled by anything that will end.  You have an appetite from God for that which you can never lose, that which will last forever.  Anything else is just too small.

So a life that is filled mostly with earth-stuff and earth-pursuits is going to be patently unsatisfying.  Your “small world” restlessness may be your heart’s warning light that you have an “eternity deficit,” a deficit that God is ready and waiting to satisfy. He is waiting to satisfy with a passion you can pursue on earth that will fill you with the excitement of eternality.  It is, in fact, the passion which Jesus pursued all the way to the cross.

God has made you restless for more because He wants to eternalize your life – to make it count for that which will last forever.  And you will never be satisfied with less.  So much of what we spend our days on won’t last.  Your job accomplishments, your home, your back account, your sports, your “stuff” – none of it will last forever.  Our days just fill up with a lot that is un-eternal and, therefore, unfulfilling.  And even our discretionary time tends to fill up with trivial pursuits – a numbing bombardment of small talk, the mental junk food of TV and social media, innumerable hours of sporting events, entertainment, or being lost in cyberspace.

But amid all the demands and distractions of the un-eternal, there is this quiet but relentless voice crying out, “Give me more; give me something that matters … something that will matter forever.” These are the restless ones … the ones hearing a voice stirring inside saying something like this:  I want to make a greater difference with the rest of my life than I have made until now.” The passion to make a greater difference with the rest of your life is from the One who gave you life… and who gave His life for you! And only He can satisfy that desire to make a difference.  And He will – if you will follow Him into the very eternal pursuit He has made you restless for.