Matt Ritzert
St. Jane de Chantal Writing Group
Restless. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines the word as lacking or denying rest, uneasy. To be troubled, unsettled, anxious. Those words could be used to describe many of us who are chasing dream jobs, bigger houses, more prestige, and greater honor. The more we chase the next big thing, the more restless we feel. The new car gets banged up. The awards won at school gather dust, the words of praise fade away. Bigger, better, more. We may even call ourselves spiritual and try to adhere to a self-described religion of the Golden Rule. We try to do the right thing and try to be a good person, but something is missing. It’s never enough. And if we peer over the fence creating the lines that define our own little world, we are confronted by more unrest and emptiness in everything from politics to chat groups.
The answer to our restlessness? In the divisive and turbulent decade of the 1960s, the Beatles produced a song called “All You Need Is Love.” It was released in 1967 during the so-called “Summer of Love.” It was an anti-war anthem urging us to love rather than fight. The song was a hit, but it didn’t prompt much change. The following year produced more assassinations, violence, and unrest. But there is another kind of love that can give us the peace we seek. The message is not delivered in a rock song, but in words that come from Scripture. In 1 John 4:7–11, John delivers a message of love echoing the words of Jesus Christ, a message that can settle our uneasy, anxious, and restless hearts and lead us to eternal life. John writes, “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.”
We are called to love one another with a love that flows from God. It is a strong and mighty love, one strong enough to prompt great sacrifice. John continues, “God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.” And John tells us that God calls us to do the same: “Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another.”
And what is love? Since the time of St. Thomas Aquinas, Christians have frequently defined love as willing the good of the other. It’s not a feeling or an emotion. Love is action, the giving of oneself. Jesus taught us how to act, how to love. Jesus healed. He welcomed sinners. He served others. He forgave the very people who killed him. He turned injury into compassion. The “religion” of the Golden Rule might motivate us to perform random acts of kindness and to help one another simply because we feel obligated to do the right thing. But Jesus acted out of love and compassion, not merely out of obligation or societal expectation. The love of Jesus and the love He expects us to share with others is an intentional, self-sacrificing love that is given freely with no grumbling or complaint. Random acts of kindness are transformed into acts of love. By following Jesus’s example, loving one another, sharing his love for us with others, we find peace and rest that turns upside down our preoccupations with material things. It is that preoccupation with the self that gives rise to restlessness, anxiety, and worry. To occupy ourselves with love is to find rest in God, to devote our attention and time not to money, power, prestige, and all the other stuff we chase after day after day after day, but to give ourselves to the other. John Lennon wrote in the Beatles song, “all we need is love, love is all we need.” Well, almost. All we need is God’s love and to spread that love to others.