Restless. Agitated. Anxious. That’s me lately.

None of my usual distractions are working. I’m not thriving in any of the areas or activities that usually affirm me and help me feel like I’m okay, that my life is okay, that it’s all okay.  All of the ways I self-medicate, they are all just a bit off kilter. Just enough to leave me with an unsatisfied pang and a highly sensitive mindset. All the things that define me are a little less definitive.  

It’s like my skin has been peeled. I’m a giant, exposed nerve. Everything is affecting me faster and more intensely than it should. I’m dangerously close to flipping the switch to off and retreating to the dark where the bright lights won’t strain my eyes and the chaos won’t pierce my ears.

I just wrote about patient endurance. How funny! Here I am feeling like I’ve lost all momentum. I’m tired. I’m half-defeated. I feel like I’ve regressed, that I’m still so much of the man I thought I’d left behind. That I’m so close to falling back into the same numbness and blindness that used to define me.  And that just feeds my frustration. I’m not really enduring very well. And I’m surely not being patient about it.

This is when and where I must take/make a stand. This is where I choose between two paths. One leads back from where I came. The other marches forward.  Again.

I was talking with a man from New York the other day who had just planted grapevines to test his wine-making skills. According to this aspiring vintner,  you actually cut off the grapes that grow the first two years so that you can build a strong, deep root system. Finally, in year three, you’ll get the kind of harvest you need to make a large barrel of potentially drinkable vino. Feels kind of like my story. There have been a few times when it seemed I was actually bearing some fruit, only for it to get cut off and removed. Like the grapes, maybe I needed to go through a few growth cycles that were focused not on fruit but on roots.

God is all about long-term success. He doesn’t want us to be flashes in the pan. 15 minutes of fame. Short-lived.  He doesn’t want us to be satisfied with a first year harvest that produces a little fruit, at the sacrifice of a much larger, sustained harvest later.

I’m still wrestling with God. Still clinging to things that make me feel good, safe, wanted, successful. Things that don’t require a whole lot of faith. Immature fruit that doesn’t require deep roots.  The danger in that is that it makes it really hard to keep the light switch on. It doesn’t require, or even allow, me to grow in Him.

I’m hoping to overcome this agitation soon. It’s clouding my vision and making it more difficult to clearly hear from God. It’s stunting my growth. One by one, I’m prying my fingers loose of the distractions, the substitutes, the cheap imitations. Trying to keep my focus on roots and not worry as much about fruits, at least for now. That will come with age, just like fine wine.