To the Beautiful Young People Who Follow Me on Tumblr:

Here’s what I suspect about you:

You are tired of living a lifeless life.
You want adventure and excitement, passion and fireworks.
You ache for a quest, a challenge to test and refine you.
You want to do something that matters.
You need desperately to belong and be loved.

I suspect, too, you believe, at least hope, God is the One Who can fill your holes, answer your aches, and light your soul on fire.

You’re so, so right.

But I want to remind you that to find God, you have to look. You have to do more than repost memes and gifs. You have to search further than your own experience. You have to make more room in your heart and your mind and your schedule for exploring Him, exploring with Him, and exploring what’s His.

You need to get out into those mountains you <3 pictures of in your dashboard.

You have to talk to old people. Actually, you should mostly listen to old people. But still, get out and talk with people like the ones on Humans of New York. Those people actually exist.

You have to read a Bible. Like actually sit down and read a whole book in a sitting. Don’t just read scriptures short enough to tweet, devoid of context. Wade in; swim out; let the words wash you like waves while you look for what God wants for you and what God wants from you—because He does want something from you, no matter what you’ve been told in a handwriting font across a picture of a sunset.

You have to talk to God. Not just about Him. You have to ask for an adventure, ask for eyes to see Him, ask for strength and courage and more beauty than you can stand. You have to confess to Him—not anonymously in the comments of some person’s blog—but directly and eponymous-ly to the One who can wipe everything away in an instant.

You need to be grateful in private, listing your blessings not just on Instagram, curating your life like an exhibit, but on paper where only you can see it, seeing God’s work in the absolutely boring, sometimes hard, not-very-flashy moments, too.

You need to live a better life. And you need to live the life you’re living better.

Looking for God takes work. It’s a practice. A discipline. An adventure. And when you get up the courage to do it, you will be led into the very life for which you so desperately long.

I promise.

So start looking, God Scouts—really looking. May your searching eyes see the unseen…