How Our Search for Meaning Can Bring Us So Much Peace
Do you ever find yourself bored, unsettled, restless? Have you ever struggled to find meaning in your life?
Culture tells us if we have the right education, the right house, the right spouse and kids, even the right toys, then we will have everything we could ever ask for in life. The problem is, all the things in the world were not meant to fill us, fix us, or provide the meaning for which our souls long. We were designed for so much more.
King Solomon had all the wealth the world had to offer and still declared, Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 2:11 NIV)
I’ve included an excerpt from my new book, Peace for a Lifetime, where I share why we were created for meaning, and how we can begin to search for and cultivate deep roots of purpose that will not only provide a solid foundation for your life, but will impact your life and relationships with significance, abundance and fulfillment beyond anything you could imagine!
Have you ever wondered, “Who am I?” or asked yourself, “What is my purpose in life?” Why are we here and what, if anything, provides meaning to our existence on this planet? Is this all for nothing? Is there more? These questions are not only valid, but they also are an active part of our journeys toward finding peace with God and peace within ourselves. There is within us all a quiet war, an epic battle for the answers to these very questions. These questions don’t request an invitation. They don’t sit politely by the side. They loom overhead in the routine and mundane tasks of the day. They step ever so softly over the stillness of our souls. We might not be aware of anything at all, except that somewhere what began as a tiny tremor grows into a seismic quake. We can feel the pounding in our ears and the reverberations in our chests, counting cadence, steadily louder and clearer. There comes a time when we can no longer tune out these battle drums. We must choose, we must fight to claim this territory once and for all, or surrender ourselves altogether.
The most basic of all human desires is to find meaning to life. Individuals who experience Emotional Abundance (EA)—the ability to feel and manage their emotions—are not only able to meet the demands of everyday life, but are able to create meaning in their lives and relationships. Anxiety is the tension that arises from that battle for meaning. Kierkegaard calls anxiety the “dizziness of freedom.”14 Existentialist theologian Paul Tillich characterizes this as “the state in which a being is aware of its nonbeing.” 15
If you have struggled to find meaning in your life, if you live with an emptiness and despair in your soul, wondering if there must be more to life than this, you are not alone. For so many years I felt both helpless and hopeless to fill the emptiness that swallowed everything inside until I discovered how to fill that hole and build a life of hope, wholeness, and meaning.
In my book, Peace For a Lifetime, I share simple, practical life steps that can help you understand the life God desires for you. This material can help you create and experience an indestructible peace – not just for today, not just for tomorrow, you can experience peace…for a lifetime!
All the things in the world were not meant to fill us, fix us,
or provide the meaning for which our souls long.
We were designed for so much more.
We were designed for God.
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14 Soren Kierkegaard, The Concept of Anxiety (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980), 61.
15 Paul Tillich, The Courage To Be (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000), 35.