I’d be more than happy to stumble across any of those things. But it hasn’t happened.

I’m guessing that you’re not surprised. Neither am I, especially since I’ve never gone out looking for gold, nor diamonds, nor silver. I haven’t gone to the places where they tend to be found. I haven’t done the things people do to try and find them.

So it’s not all that surprising that I’ve never found any of these treasures.

Have you found God? If not, it’s possible that you’re not really looking for Him. It’s one thing to say, “I’d like to find God.” It’s quite another to actually look for Him.

There are some basic things you need to do:

1. Decide that you really want to find God. This has to be more than curiosity. Set out to know Him, not just know about Him. Your goal is to have a relationship with the Creator of the universe.
2. Spend time in prayer. Express your desire to know God. Be honest with Him, but humble. Pour out your thoughts and feelings. Be willing to patiently wait. Relationships take time.
3. Read the Bible. Spend time studying God’s revelation of Himself. Try to learn about Him. Look at His people and how they react to Him, both good and bad. Read through the poetry known as the psalms, looking at the range of emotions expressed in that book. Study the life of Jesus to see how God lived as a human being.
4. Be with others who are seeking God. While it’s true that God can be found anywhere, it’s easier to find Him in the presence of others who have already found Him. Find a church, a community of believers, and get them to help you in your search.

I probably won’t ever find gold or diamonds or silver. But I found God, a treasure worth far more than any of those things. And you can find Him too.

He’d been ready to give up. Ready to lie down and die. He saw no hope, no future, no point in going on.

Then an angel told him to go to the mountain. And Elijah was there, waiting for God. But he didn’t know what to expect.

A powerful wind came, ripping apart the very rocks that made up the mountain. Surely this was God! But no, God wasn’t in that wind.

Next there came an earthquake. As Elijah felt the very mountain tremble, he must have been certain that this was God revealing himself. But no, God wasn’t in the earthquake.

After the earthquake came a fire. Again Elijah looked for God. But God wasn’t in the fire.

Then came what the King James Version translates as “a still, small voice.” A whisper. A barely audible murmur with a question on its breath: “What are you doing here?” (1 Kings 19:12–13)

Elijah poured out his tale of woe, telling of his faithfulness to God compared with the unfaithfulness of the people around him. He told of the queen’s persecution of God’s prophets and her specific efforts to kill him. He explained to God that no else was faithful, not even one. Only Elijah was left.

That’s when God explained to Elijah that he couldn’t see the whole picture. That God was doing things that Elijah didn’t know about. That God had plans in motion, some of which included Elijah. And there were still six thousand people faithful to God that Elijah wasn’t aware of.

Have you ever reached that point where dying seemed to make more sense than living? The extreme of frustration and hopelessness that leaves you doubting whether God Himself can fix your problems?

Maybe you need to go to the mountain. Go looking for God. Don’t expect hurricanes or earthquakes. Don’t expect to be swept in a holy fire. Listen for the still, small voice. Listen for the question: “What are you doing here?”

And once you’ve poured out your heartaches and your fears, you may just find that God is doing things you don’t know about, both in your life and the lives of others.

But you’ll never see it, if you don’t look for Him.

Someone said, “A New Year’s resolution is something that goes in one year and out the other.” Oscar Wilde, known for being less than fond of moral reform, stated, “Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account.”

How have you fared with your resolutions in other years? Been able to overcome your bad habits from the past?

It wasn’t easy for the apostle Paul either. He wrote to Christians in Rome: “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.” (Romans 7:19) In the same letter, he said, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24)

How well I know that cry! I have felt that struggle of wanting to do good, but doing evil instead. I think most of us, if we’re honest, can confess the same thing.

The Bible talks about our “flesh,” the very human part of us. Our biological self, with its drives and urges, is a powerful force that leads us to live according to the standards of this world, not God’s standard. For people like Paul, who want to do right, our flesh becomes a “body of death.” Paul also wrote, “For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.” (Galatians 5:17)

You can’t change. That is, you can’t really change yourself. You might be able to modify your behavior, but you can’t really change who you are.

However, God can change you. He can make you what you want to be, what you ought to be. In that letter to the Galatians, Paul also wrote, “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.” (Galatians 5:16) To the Romans, he said, “For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” (Romans 8:13)

Only through the power of God’s Holy Spirit can we be changed, can we be made into the people we want to be. We can’t do it on our own. We can’t do it through positive thinking nor force of will. Only with God’s help can we be what we want to be.

And that help is there for the asking. As Paul said, “Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:24–25)