meaning on Mental Illness

Adapted from Ch 4 of On Getting out of Bed. Why is Existence Good? Living for the sake of living—doing things so that you can continue to efficiently do things—begs the question, Why live? To live...

The man who prosecuted the infamous Manson family for their murders later wrote a book titled Helter Skelter. This phrase was taken from a song performed by a well-known rock music group. Manson...

For some people, a lack of purpose and meaning in life can provide fertile ground for the development of panic attacks and phobias.

In ordinary times we get along surprisingly well, on the whole, without ever discovering what our faith really is. If, now and again, this remote and academic problem is so unmannerly as to thrust its...

Humans don’t mind hardship, in fact they thrive on it; what they mind is not feeling necessary. Modern society has perfected the art of making people not feel necessary. It’s time for that to end.

Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to a divine purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing...

Like me, you may struggle deeply with what it means to live well. We are all seeking to take these scattered moments of meaning and weave them together into a beautiful whole.

We humans have purpose on the brain…show us almost any object or process, and it is hard for us to resist the “Why question…It is an almost universal delusion…the old temptation comes back with a veng...

The more you engage in meaningful activities, the more likely you are to experience discomfort.

In times of crisis, people reach for meaning. Meaning is strength. Our survival may depend on our seeking and finding it.

Burnout is the disease of our age. Time magazine had an editorial way back in the 1980s about “the burnout of just about everybody.” I concluded that the metaphor of burnout was not quite right, parti...

Gracious and loving God, you know the deep inner patterns of my life that keep me from being totally yours. You know the misformed structures of my being that hold me in bondage to something less than...

The other enemy of the soul, meaninglessness…chokes out life with equal vigor. Meaninglessness woos us into spending our one shot at life on insignificant and trivial things. If we are not vigilant, w...

He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.

Psalm 101:3: “I will not set before my eyes anything that is worthless.” The term here—worthless—is a compound, literally: without profit. It is “the quality of being useless, good for nothing.” Pg.11...

We had the experiences but missed the meaning.

A person’s life can be meaningful only if she cares fairly deeply about some things, only if she is gripped, excited, interested, engaged.

Distance does not decide who is your brother and who is not. The church is going to have to become the conscience of the free market if it's to have any meaning in this world - and stop being its ...

It is a quotidian mystery that dailiness can lead to such despair and yet also be at the core of our salvation. . . . We want life to have meaning, we want fulfillment, healing and even ecstasy, but t...

Sin isn’t only doing bad things, it is more fundamentally making good things into ultimate things. Sin is building your life and meaning on anything, even a very good thing, more than on God. Whatever...

As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.

We don’t know what’s going on here. If these tremendous events are random combinations of matter run amok, the yield of millions of monkeys at millions of typewriters, then what is it in us, hammered ...

In a “Peanuts” comic strip, Lucy sets up a small stand with a sign: “Advice—5 cents.” Charlie Brown approaches, looking for guidance. “Lucy, I need help,” he says. “What seems to be the trouble?” she ...

We cannot be happy if we expect to live all the time at the highest peak of intensity. Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony.

Do you want your life to count? Do you want to look back and say that you made the biggest difference possible? Most Christians want to devote their lives to something significant. Deep inside they wa...

Ask me not where I live or where I like to eat . . . ask me what I am living for and what is keeping me from living fully for that.

The paradox of prosperity is that while living standards have risen steadily decade after decade, personal, family, and life satisfaction haven’t budged. That’s why more people—liberated by prosperity...

When we speak of being the steward of our life, something else must be stressed. We are called to be the steward not of some ideal life or even the life we wish we had; rather we are called to be stew...

We all crave a meaningful life. This is good and holy. But in the quest for meaning, we get mixed up, turned around, and accidentally end up constantly in a hurry. We rush to grow successful businesse...

I once was significantly lost. When I was a college student in northern Wisconsin, my dad and I were hiking on a trail that was somewhat familiar to me. I had been on this trail just a few weeks befor...