The pursuit of meaning.

How do you find meaning in life?

What gets you out of bed in the morning? What puts fire in your belly and a skip in your step? We are all living for something, no human can escape this. Some live for pleasure, success, passion, intellect, do-gooding, the list could go on and on.

Recently, I listened to a great podcast by Ravi Zacharias. Ravi is a tremendous communicator. If I were hosting a dinner party and could invite any five people in the world he would likely be on that list. Ravi is intelligent, interesting, a charming story teller, eloquent speaker, and lover of people.

This particular podcast was the third in a series on the pursuit of meaning. Ravi proposed that two of the elements of a meaningful life are Truth & Love.

1) Truth

We all believe certain things, in every areas of our lives: faith, science, thoughts on self, how the world works, etc etc. But is it true? Do you believe what you believe because it is easy, seems nice or is what you have always known? This is what Ravi had to say:

“If a man believing a certain religion looks at me and says “It makes me feel good”. My question to him isn’t whether it makes you feel good, LSD can make you feel good. My question is: is it true!”

1) Love

Ravi's second point: “You can not have meaning without love.”

"Ladies and gentlemen, before God I beg you to believe me - of all the thrills of lucrative benefits that the business or the preaching world could have brought to me, of all the wonder that comes from preaching at a conference with such great names, of all the joy that comes from meeting other people at conferences or what have you, reading some great books, and studying philosophy that can dazzle your mind. All of them have paled for so long into insignificance as I realize in that one minute I learned more about the meaning of life then in all the books in philosophy that I had ever read. Meaning comes from relationship."

That one minute: coming home to his young daughter.

Neither of these things stand alone as the meaning of life. If one became your meaning you will be crushed, no one will ever find all the answers we are looking for and human love doesn't solve all of our woes. Even so, how amazing are both of these things?! Neither are easy to come by, but I think they are worth fighting for. Who's with me?

Click here to hear what Ravi has to say about it