Challenge yourself to recite Matthew 7:7-12 by memory to a friend or family member.

When we experience times of thirst, we must choose to step into search on our journey. It is easy to protest and explain to God that we do not want to experience a time of longing. We can ask Him not to stir it up, and we can decide to ignore it. We can even become angry and distance ourselves from God.

Instead, going to God in the longing presents a pathway to a more profound revelation of Him.

Psalm 107:9: For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things.

Good things in God’s eyes are different than the good things we immediately think are important. When we contemplate good things, we may tend to think of material blessings but God’s goodness works to give us security in His love. Understanding who we are as His child, creates a deeper faith in us which is of greater worth than gold.

1 Peter 1:6-9: In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

It is not in our nature to ask God to bring us a greater revelation of Him, as we tend to think only of what we believe will create good in our circumstances. In times of search, what might God be at work to do?

Search creates times when we learn God’s love more profoundly. We grow to believe Him, and we begin to rejoice as we realize who we are in Him now as His child and who He is creating us to be for eternity. Search helps us remember God’s good is the work He is about first in our inner life as He draws us closer to Him in love so that we shine His love in this broken world.

Pray this prayer of St. Francis of Assisi "Lord, make me an instrument of your peace: where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen."