When a person starts long for God at the soul level, it comes from a place deeper than our reason and temporary emotions. It is like being pulled by an internal cord into a direction you may not consciously understand. Often, people experience this sensation over time, and describe it with sensing language (discerning, noticing, thirsting, hungering, itching, burning, aching, yearning, pining). When it comes to the soul (and the spirit), it isn’t a factual knowing or a rational reasoning, but an intuitive perceiving. Often, this means waking up a level of desire for righteousness and longing for the beauty of God that people didn’t know they had.