Unrest does not come from God?
We spoke a while ago with X. He is leaving next week as a missionary to country Y. Only… he had absolutely no peace about it. He had been sleeping poorly for weeks. His mind and heart were restless. Yet his support network told him that this unrest meant nothing, because “unrest does not come from God.”
But then we have a problem. Because what do we see in the Bible?
With Saul, God actually does cause unrest in order to make clear that he is no longer walking in God’s ways:
The Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD terrorized him. 1 Samuel 16:14
Also Nebuchadnezzar’s dream came from God (see Daniel 2:28) and brought unrest as a warning and revelation:
“In the second year of his reign, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams; and his spirit was troubled and his sleep left him.” Daniel 2:1
And in the book of Job it is made very clear that God can even use disturbing dreams to bring someone to understanding:
“God speaks… in a dream, a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on men… then He frightens them with warnings, to turn man from his conduct and keep him from pride.” Job 33:14–16
In other words: God can certainly speak through unrest. Simply dismissing that unrest with the argument “God does not cause unrest” is therefore not biblically sustainable.
Should X go to country Y? We do not know. That is something X must discern together with God. But that the unrest is there is certain. And now it is up to X to discern: does this unrest come from God, or is its source something else?
