To realize God lives within us is a most wondrous thing. It astonishes us to find that what we have been searching for all along has always been already with us. That we are not alone and have never been alone is a wonderful revelation to us.

In these moments of awareness, there is no room for fear. Fear is nonsense in the presence of God. As long as we experience God as separate from us, we will fear him. Our instinct is to run away from such power. What we don’t realize is that we are running from ourselves. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10), yes, but it is precisely that: the beginning. To attain to wisdom—to return to wisdom—we must move beyond that fear.

Just now I lost my pen. I looked all around me—on my chair, on my lap, on the floor, in my hands. But I had no memory of setting it anywhere. My head darted to and fro, searching, but it already possessed what it desired. I had put the pen in my mouth! As soon as I stopped searching for it, there it was.

This darting action, this frenetic searching, may be a necessary part of your perfect path to God (as it has been for me)—or it may not be. However we come to it, what we all desire is to be in that place of perfect peace. I am still searching. I still have a lot to learn. While we’re in these bodies, I think that will always be true, at least for most of us. But we can experience God in increasing measures. The key is not to search, but to let go of searching.

In this moment, I heed the words of Jesus to a searching woman: “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:41-42) Like Mary, let us sit contentedly at the feet of Christ, who is always already with us and within us.