Did you know sharks need forward motion to survive? Without forcing water through their gills, they drown.

Anybody else feel like a drowning shark right now?

Currently, I have two nine-foot artificial Christmas trees lying in the living room under eight-foot ceilings, and the only reaction I can muster is, “Nice Clark.”  Also, I’m a writer not writing, a reader not reading, and a bible student not studying. I can’t figure out how to fit my square-peg self into a round Christmas hole, and lately I pray like a kid off her Ritalin.

I’m struggling with things I once did with ease, and it stresses me out. If I’m not those things who am I? Author Sarah Bessey talks about “the right now and not yet” Kingdom of God. Wherever that is, I’m there. I’m stuck in the becoming and I need forward motion.

Unfortunately, my Christian friends pray for me then say things like this:

“I feel like the Lord is saying you just need to pause.”

“Maybe just be a still for a little while and wait.”

Worse, that supports what I’ve heard in my own speedy-sleepy, look-there’s-a-squirrel, prayer time.

“Rest. Baby. Rest”

This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it. Isaiah 30:15

Are you kidding me? I’m like a dog chasing cars. I don’t know why I’m doing that but I’m loathe to stop because what beating will my identity and self-worth take if I’m not getting my book published, expanding my platform, rocking my job, and making my house look like the cover of Southern Living? I’m supposed to just sit still and like it?

Maybe that’s what the LORD meant by the “you would have none of it” part.

The Apostle Paul said, “For I have learned to be content in any circumstance. I have experienced times of need and times of abundance. In any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of contentment, whether I go satisfied or hungry, have plenty or nothing. I am able to do all things through the one who strengthens me.” Phil 4:11-13 NET

Paul didn’t say the secret of contentment fell on him like rice at a wedding, he LEARNED it, and probably while standing in a Roman prison in ankle deep sewage. What sort of encounter did Paul have with Jesus, either there or on his way to Damascus, to produce that kind of confidence?

Whatever it was, I seem to be taking the long way. Except for two, too tall Christmas trees, there’s not one thing wrong. No prison. No sewage. So what’s with the discontent? Why am I chasing cars?

Because I doubt who I am in Christ and I don’t know how to rest in his strength.

Ouch.

See chasing happiness is easier because it gives us something to do, like the dog. Resting at the feet of Jesus, requires attentive stillness, humility and surrender. It’s where I get ok with bringing nothing to the table.

Rest is the prerequisite for contentment.

Maybe the difference between happiness and contentment is like the Paris hotel in Vegas vs. Trocadero Square. At first, the mini Eiffel Tower jutting out of the Nevada desert with all the sparkly people partying beneath it, makes your heart race because it doesn’t yet look like the hopped up, expensive hoax it is.

But the first time you see the real thing, with the sparkly lights dancing all around it at midnight, it doesn’t make your heart race. It makes it stand still.