The search for what I need begins when it stops being about the search for what I need.

Although I am convinced otherwise, what I ‘want’ empties me of all that I could ever need, while what I ‘need’ fills me with all that I could ever want. It’s just that I tend to have that all backwards most of the time, so I am empty all of the time.

We wonder why peace is elusive. Simply put, anything is elusive if we’re looking for it in the wrong places. And if God doesn’t have something to do with our search, we’re definitely in the wrong place.

Real treasure is not about what we found. Rather, it’s about the fact that we finally found it.

Christmas is God coming to the very place that we would never think to look for Him. And I think He did that because we live in the very places that the world would never think to look for us.

Why in the world have we never found what we’re really looking for? Because what we need is often the very thing we won’t accept. And sadly, in turning away the God we need, we need to understand that we have chosen to live without everything we need.

What we’re searching for will determine where we arrive, or if we arrive. And right in the middle of such risky choices, Christmas is God perfectly solving the problem by showing us what to search for and then bringing it to us.

With God, being lost is nothing more than an idea that never has and never will be anything more than an idea.

Safety is not a destination that we reach for, rather it is a retreat that we escape to. And if our lives are marked by the incessant search for safety, we will live the whole of it going in reverse.