Growing up in a large family, I’m sure it was hard for my parents to find ways to entertain all of us kids. But my dad has always been someone who thinks outside the box. I have so many memories of him creating these elaborate, mysterious scavenger hunt quests for us. Sometimes they were for all of us kids, other times for one person’s birthday. When we were younger, we’d search all around our property for clues. As we got older, we’d find ourselves driving all over town, piecing it together clue by clue—until we finally reached the end. The final prize. The surprise. The goal we’d been working toward.
We were searching—longing—for that final destination. That sense of certainty that the hunt was over and we’d made it.
In a way, that’s all of us. Searching. Longing. Maybe for your keys in the morning, or for the right form for the DMV. A child’s missing sandal that, if they only looked a little harder, was actually on their bed. Or maybe it’s something deeper: purpose, direction, acceptance, clarity—to be seen, to be wanted.
We all carry desires. Hopes. Longings. The ache to feel like our lives are good enough, our jobs pay enough, our homes meet our expectations, our children turn out the way we imagined, that we ourselves might—finally—be enough.
But what if we’re longing for the wrong things? What if the things we think will satisfy us never truly can? Will we always be chasing, always just one clue away from joy?
When we measure our lives by the world’s standards, there’s a 100% chance we will fail—or be failed. We live in a world full of tension, violence, sickness, loss, mistakes, and confusion. Brokenness greets us at every corner. And if we’re honest, there’s not a single day where we get it all right—where our thoughts are pure, our actions perfect, or our plans unfold exactly as they should.
This is the problem of sin. Our sin. The world’s sin. And there will never be a day in this life when we or the world do not fall short. We will be disappointed—by others, by ourselves, by circumstances, by systems. It’s inescapable.
Everyone you know is carrying something. Everyone has pain, fear, doubts, and struggle.
The only way I’ve learned to keep going—even when it feels impossible—is Jesus. The older I get, the more I see, the more my faith grows. That doesn’t mean I never doubt or question—but my hope keeps getting deeper and wider.
A few weeks ago, Elijah Dally preached on John 4, where Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at the well. She was searching—like all of us—for something to fill the emptiness. Elijah said something I haven’t forgotten: “If you’ve ever longed for satisfaction and contentment, you are actually longing for Jesus.”
It’s like the moment in a scavenger hunt when all the scattered clues finally come together and point to one destination. Hope in Jesus becomes more than a belief—it becomes a desire to truly know Him, and a growing awareness that He is the treasure we’ve been searching for all along.
The God who made us—made us for Himself. And the only way we will ever be satisfied in this short life is to find our rest, our fullness, our contentment in Him. He is enough, so we don’t have to be. Because of Jesus and His work on the cross, we live for something far greater than ourselves. Our purpose is to glorify Him in all things. And because of that, no matter how hard life gets or, how broken the world feels or how far we’ve fallen—we can still have joy. We can still long for heaven, where everything will be made right, just as it was always meant to be.
After all the wandering, all the chasing and hoping and waiting—we can finally stop searching. Because we’ve found what our hearts were longing for all along.
So let us fix our eyes on Jesus,
Hebrews 12:2
the author and perfecter of our faith—
who for the joy set before Him endured the cross,
scorning its shame,
and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Raina Songer
Raina is a member of our Christ’s Church family and is married to Chip, Creative Director and Worship Minister at Christ’s Church. She loves spending time with her family and making things with her hands – cooking, drawing, sewing, repurposing, etc. Raina is pictured here with Chip and their three children, Theodore, Edison, and Winifred.
