The Crucial Thing

In a journal entry by the Danish Philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, the great existentialist philosopher describes the importance not simply of grasping the truth of the Christian faith, but having the truth of the Christian faith manifest itself in his everyday life:

What I really need is to get clear about what I must do, not what I must know, excerpt insofar as knowledge must precede every act. What matters is to find a purpose, to see what it really is that God wills that I shall do; the crucial thing is to find a truth which is truth for me, to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die…

What use would it be to me to be able to formulate the meaning of Christianity, to be able to explain many specific points- if it had no deeper meaning for my life?…I certainly do not deny that I still accept an imperative of knowledge and that through it men may be influenced, but then it must come alive in me, and this is what I now recognize as the most important of all. This is what my soul thirsts for as the African deserts thirst for water.