Four babies will be born in the time it takes to read this sentence.

In the next minute, 255 more will be born. More than 350,000 humans will be born somewhere in the world today.

Even though these babies will be born to many different families and cultures, speak different languages, and have different colored skin, hair and eyes, they will have many other things in common: They will all have the same basic needs — food, water, air, light, shelter. They will need healthy blood, hearts and lungs to survive.

They will also share the human experience: Pain, fatigue, desire. They will learn and grow, and sometimes fail and sometimes succeed.

Physical DNA

And, they will all share the physical characteristics of their biological parents. They will receive DNA from their parents — an inescapable mark that links them with their fathers and mothers.

If a child’s parents have dark skin, the child will have dark skin. If a boy’s parents are both tall, he will be tall too. If a girl’s parents are intelligent, she will almost certainly share that characteristic, that imprint.

All those babies will also have divine imprints.

Spiritual DNA

This becomes evident when babies grow up, stand and look at the night sky and ask, “How did the universe begin? Is there any purpose in my existence? Can my life have any lasting meaning?” When a little girl in Thailand stands beside a temple filled with idols and wonders, “Is it true?” she is revealing the divine imprint in her heart. When a young, African boy attends his first funeral, he cannot keep from asking, “Where do people go when they die?” because he has a divine imprint in his heart.

But this divine imprint is not only evident in our questions about life and death. It is also revealed in our actions. When the oppressed demand justice, when a woman is jealous because her husband has been unfaithful, when a judge is merciful to a thief who deserves punishment, it is because God’s divine imprint in our hearts tells us that justice, faithfulness and mercy are good.

When we see a world full of suffering and believe in our hearts that this is not how it should be, it is the God-given divine imprint telling us that there is something wrong. The world is not as it should be. Our desire for joy and peace and our dissatisfaction with sorrow and turmoil is a clear sign of God’s imprint on hearts.

God has given humans more than physical DNA. He has given us spiritual DNA. We are not the same nature as God in the way babies are the same nature as their parents, but we have been created by God. And when he made us, he “set eternity in our hearts” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). God created us to be in relationship with him for eternity, so it is impossible to have peace apart from him.

God Seeks Us

The Lord Jesus said he came from God to “seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). So, God made us, and we belong to God, but because of sin we have been separated from him. We have lost the relationship we should have with him. But thankfully, God did not give up on us. He sent Jesus to “seek and to save” us so we could be reunited with our Maker.

We Seek God

At the same time, Jesus said we should seek God — this should be our first priority. It’s easy for us to ignore the divine imprint on our hearts and focus all of our attention on the needs and worries of everyday life. But Jesus urged us to “seek first God’s kingdom and his righteousness” (Matthew 6:33). Even as Jesus seeks us, we must seek him.

We seek God by faith, through prayer and the Scriptures, but it begins by recognizing that God has put a divine imprint in our hearts. He seeks us and invites us to seek him. And, Jesus made a very exciting promise: “Seek, and you will find” (Matthew 7:7). We should be encouraged to know that if we seek God, we will find him. Jesus has promised it.

Pray to the Lord Jesus and tell him that you want to be reunited with God. Thank him for seeking you, and ask him to show you the way as you seek him with all your heart.