“Have you seen my tape measure?” asked my husband. “I left it on the table yesterday.”

Those few words are all it takes for me to move. I leap up from my desk and march toward the table, launching my mission with confirmation of said item’s absence.

I carry a special superhero gene which activates the second someone says anything about something lost. Like Clark Kent bursting from the phone booth, I respond with record speed. It has never crossed my mind to do anything different except to find what is missing. I don’t ask if they want my help or if they would like to figure it out on their own. I spring into action without a second thought. Like a flash of lightning in the forest, a spark ignites, and I surge forward on the hunt. Moving from room to room, searching in every drawer and on each shelf for the target. Nothing satisfies my soul until I am holding the prize in my hands.

As I studied my Bible today, I came across a verse in Song of Solomon which articulated the instinctual push I get when something is missing. I recognized the desperation of the search and understood the urgency the author experienced as he wrote, “I must seek him who my soul loves.” Even though I was often only scouting a tape measure or some other random household item, I felt the same push to seek until I found.

It reminded me of how God searched for me when I was lost.

The connection forced me to ask myself if I look for God as desperately as he looked for me. I could see him busting out of that enclosure, shepherd’s staff in hand, racing to my last known location, determined not to stop until I was located and marked safe. He didn’t decide to hang around until I found my way back. He produced a vigorous, deliberate action full of intention. It was an immediate and active search.

Do I look for him like that?

Do I burst out of the bed to my Bible and search the scriptures for him, anxious to find what he has to tell me? Do I watch the skies and the wind and the water with intention, looking for him in his creation and offering my gratitude for leaving behind such beautiful clues of his whereabouts? Do I call out his name in the good and the bad times, searching for his voice amid my tears?

Or do I saunter through my to-do list, unaffected by his absence in my pink-highlighted check boxes, waiting for him to show up with no effort from me? Am I even looking for him at all?

My relationship with my love should not be an idle waiting game. It should be an active search, a vigorous and intentional pursuit, a hunt for his glory as I scout out his presence in my life. I want to encounter the same compulsion to seek him the way I do lost things—the way he sought me. Do I actively seek the one I say my soul loves, like he does as the lover of my soul? I can hear him now, “Have you seen my Shannon? She was just right here.”