There is something deeply restorative about being alone in your car.

No one is asking you to turn the radio down. No competing playlists. Just a stretch of road, a few thoughts, and a song that somehow knows exactly where you are in life.

On my way to the doctor’s office this week, I found myself belting out I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For by U2 with the windows up, voice unfiltered, heart wide open.

The irony wasn’t lost on me. Bono was only 27 when that song was released. And yet here we are, decades later, with people in their 40s, 50s, and beyond still feeling every word in their bones.

We’re officially a week into the New Year, which is usually the point when the shine starts to wear off. Some people are charging ahead with resolutions and color-coded planners. Others are quietly letting their goals slip back into the place where unmet intentions go to rest. That’s normal. January has a way of revealing what motivation alone can’t sustain.

But this song has never really been about goals.

It’s about longing.
About belief rubbing up against uncertainty.
About the tension between knowing something intellectually and trusting it with your whole life.

Bono once explained that the song speaks to faith, specifically to the struggle many Protestant and Catholic Christians experience when belief feels present, but peace or clarity does not. The song acknowledges Christ, sacrifice, redemption, and still admits, I’m searching.

That honesty matters.

A friend once told me something that stuck:
“I believe, but I don’t have faith, and I understand the difference.”

He wasn’t being flippant. He was being precise. Belief can live in the mind. Faith has to settle into the heart, into the places that don’t yet have answers. And for many of us, especially those who have lived, lost, grieved, hoped, and been disappointed more than once, that gap can feel wide.

This song gives permission to name that gap without shame.

You can believe and still question.
You can love God and still feel restless.
You can be faithful and still searching.

That doesn’t make you broken. It makes you honest.

As this year unfolds, before the pressure ramps up and the noise gets louder, I hope this is the year you allow yourself to sit with the questions instead of rushing past them. I hope you don’t confuse uncertainty with failure or searching with lack of faith.

Sometimes the journey is the prayer.

And maybe finding what you’re looking for isn’t about arriving at a perfect answer, but about continuing to walk, listen, and trust that the longing itself is pointing you somewhere meaningful.

Here’s to a year of honest faith, quiet car rides, and songs that remind us we’re not alone in the search.