HOW DO WE FIND MEANING IN LIFE?

“There is no joy in an aimless life, no fulfilment when life seems meaningless. ….Our life has a meaning for us when we have a definite goal, when we struggle to attain it, when we concentrate on the effort it calls for, when we face obstacles and accept sacrifices. Of course, it is not yet the total meaning of life. It is a provisional meaning, but a valid one. It is only a stage, but a necessary one….

The idea of a general meaning of life seems to me to be inconceivable without some reference to transcendence, some reference to God, the creator of the world and of life…. For me the meaning of life is what Jesus variously calls the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven, and eternal life. He does not situate it in the distant future, but in the immediate present. The Kingdom of God, he says, is very near you (Luke 10:9). And elsewhere: It is among you (Luke 17:21). He has taught us to ask for its coming every day in the Lord’s Prayer. And afterwards he explicitly says ‘on earth as in heaven’ (Matt.6:10). Thus he joins together what many people separate: the immediate earthly reality and the transcendent and eternal reality which in biblical language is called ‘heaven’. There is something of eternal life in every authentic personal act, and every genuine personal contact.”

(Paul Tournier, Learn to Grow Old)