Where does meaning come from? Viktor Frankl in his book “Man’s Search for Meaning” shares a couple of thoughts to this end. Viktor is a Psychologist and Holocaust survivor who tells his story through the years he spent in the concentration camps. Here are his three ideas.
Work on something that is good for the world.
Being (exist) in a community where you experience deep love.
Redeem the events of your past.
Number one on the list is having your ‘why’ of life answered. Knowing why you are doing something helps you to endure any ‘how’. You find meaning in life by having purpose and working towards that cause that brings good to the world. This is the reason that volunteering at the local food bank feels good inside. It is where the statement, ‘It is better to give than receive’ takes on meaning at Christmas. By working on something that is good for the world, you find purpose in life. This is the reason I got into ministry. 1 John 3:16 says, “This is how we know what love is, Jesus gave up his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.”
The second part is this: You can work to save the world, but if you do not have people around you who know you personally, the meaning of life is also not there. Jesus had that community with his Father and the Holy Spirit. He spent time early every day with them. The core of our existence is being created in the image of God. God is 3 in 1, the Trinity. We were created for community. I am going to share a little more on this in next week’s blog post. For now, I will say that we need to be transparent. We need people in our life who we can speak into and who can speak into us. Those who can come and say, ‘When you said this, it hurt.’ And you can work through it and become a better person because of the transparency.
Finally, we get to redeeming the events of your past. Starting out, this implies working through the bad that has happened to us or the bad we have done to others. The good doesn’t need redeeming. So how do we carry the shame, guilt, and/or pain of the past? How can we work to let that go? Like the first two, this is also not a solo mission, but a community event. Whether it is deep or a mere flesh wound, we need people to walk through it with us. Sometimes that community is simply going back and seeking forgiveness. Sometimes that is sitting at the gravestone and saying what was never said. Sometimes that is grabbing a friend, writing the past on a piece of paper, and burning it forever.
You must practice all three of these things together. 30 years ago, 1 in 10 Americans stated they didn’t have any close friends. Today, that statistic is 1 in 4. I think that foundation for changing the direction of all this in our society begins in Acts chapter 2. They were DEVOTED… they were in it together. They ate together. They shared their passions and possessions together. More people came around to be a part of the rest of eternity. They found the meaning of life. Together.
Brad
Special thanks to Jake Smith at Church of the City Nashville for bringing this topic and book to light in my life.
Mans Search for Meaning-Viktor Frankl
