How to Find Meaning.

When we face life’s problems we are often confused where to find a meaning in our lives.  What is this business called life and how are we to live it? 

According to Freud, the primary drive of man is the pursuit of pleasure. 
Nietzsche contends it is power.  But Viktor Frankl, believes the primary goal of man is not pleasure or power, but a search for meaning. 

Viktor Frankl was a German Jew taken to various concentration camps.  He suffered for three years during the Holocaust and endured the murder of his entire family and pregnant wife.  He himself was a survivor but was witness to the atrocities that man endured while being tormented and enslaved in Germany’s worst concentration camps.  He observed that those men who lost faith or saw only the hopelessness of their life were the first to die.  Those who looked beyond the walls of their prison saw hope in the future that at some point they would be rescued were the survivors.

From his observation, Frankl wrote this little book called The Search for Meaning. When I pulled it from my library shelf, I decided to write this blog centered on his writings. 

So, if a human beings’ primary drive is the search for meaning, where do we look?  If it’s not in the Himalayas, the ashram, the shrink’s couch, the self-help section of the bookstore, the office, the lab, the studio, the field or even the sanctuary, then where?

When Moses was speaking his final words to the Hebrews before God took him, he tells us where to look. “it is not in heaven, nor is it across the sea. Rather, the matter is very near to you, in your mouth and your heart to perform it.”

What is this matter ‘that is near and dear that we are to perform? “

It’s the very words of our Messiah speaking to the scribe who came to Him.  “Rabbi, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”    

Jeshua’s reply” You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the great and first commandment.  And the second is like it “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”  

And that is the challenge for us.  To walk in His ways and observing his commandments which Jesus/Jeshua clarified for us. 

When our hearts beat with the knowledge of this truth within us, then as Moses said……the “matter” is in our mouths.  It drives our speech and our actions.  It’s who we are at our core. It’s who we should be or to become. 
1.  What are three things you are looking for in your life? 
           Where have you been looking?

           2. Will external things make us happy or give us real peace? 

           3. Look within yourself.  Focus on the strength, abilities, talents
               and gifts that you have been given. Do all to help your fellow man. Seek God and His righteousness and all these things will be given you. Now how will you use these gifts?

                                      Then……………

                    You will find the true meaning of life!