Topics:<\/b> Affliction; Life; Loss; Meaning; Perseverance; Purpose; Suffering<\/p>\n
References:<\/b> Matthew 10:39; Mark 12:30; Philippians 4:13<\/p>\n
When Jewish psychiatrist Viktor Frankl was arrested by the Nazis in World War II and put in Auschwitz, the infamous death camp, he was stripped of everything: property, family, possessions\u2014and a manuscript he had spent years researching and writing on finding meaning in life. The manuscript had been sewn into the lining of his coat.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow it seemed as if nothing and no one would survive me; neither a physical nor a spiritual child of my own,\u201d Frankl wrote. \u201cI found myself confronted with the question of whether under such circumstances my life was ultimately void of any meaning.\u201d<\/p>\n
A few days later, the Nazis forced the prisoners to give up what little clothing they still wore. \u201cI had to surrender my clothes and in turn inherited the worn-out rags of an inmate who had been sent to the gas chamber,\u201d said Frankl. \u201cInstead of the many pages of my manuscript, I found in the pocket of the newly acquired coat a single page torn out of a Hebrew prayer book, which contained the Jewish prayer \u2018Shema Yisrael\u2019 (Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one God. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.)<\/p>\n
\u201cHow should I have interpreted such a \u2018coincidence\u2019 other than as a challenge to \u2018live\u2019 my thoughts instead of merely putting them on paper?\u201d<\/p>\n
Frankl later reflected on his ordeal in Man\u2019s Search for Meaning<\/i>, saying, \u201cThere is nothing in the world that would so effectively help one to survive even the worst conditions, as the knowledge that there is meaning in one\u2019s life.\u2026 He who has a \u2018why\u2019 to live for can bear almost any \u2018how.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Based on Viktor Frankl, Man\u2019s Search for Meaning<\/i> (Pocket, 1997)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Topics: Affliction; Life; Loss; Meaning; Perseverance; Purpose; Suffering References: Matthew 10:39; Mark 12:30; Philippians 4:13 When Jewish psychiatrist Viktor Frankl was arrested by the Nazis in World War II and put in Auschwitz, the infamous death camp, he was stripped of everything: property, family, possessions\u2014and a manuscript he had spent years researching and writing on … Continue reading “WHY
\n GO ON LIVING?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5965\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}