And not only us, if you think about it. One of the surest indicators of how frustrated people can be in life, how meaningless it seems to them, is the suicide rate per capita. So, at the top of this list are very different countries: poor and rich, dictatorships and democracies. It turns out that it is not external circumstances that determine how meaningful a person sees his own life.

In the biblical book of the prophet Amos there are these words: "Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord God, when I will send a famine upon the land, not a famine of bread, not a thirst for water, but a thirst for hearing the words of the Lord" (8:11). It is this thirst that we feel now, when the material hunger has been satisfied as much as possible. And it turned out that you can crave a word as much as water on a hot day... By the way, the "word" in Greek sounds like "Logos", it is with this concept that the Gospel of John opens: "In the beginning was the Logos". And in the same way the Greeks denoted meaning. "Man in Search of the Logos" is how the title of Frankl's book could be translated.

It is human nature to come up with logical explanations for everything that happens to him. The so-called "Stockholm syndrome" is also based on this: people taken hostage by terrorists over time begin to justify the actions of terrorists and identify themselves with them. It is unbearable for them to think that they are only a means, an expendable material for terrorists. They will be inclined to agree that terrorists have lofty goals and that they are the helpers of these truth-seekers, and that is the meaning they invent for their suffering. Only because of this, of course, they do not cease to be pawns in the terrorist game.

From the point of view of the Bible, our entire world is taken hostage by terrorists, their head is called in the Bible: "the prince of this world", that is, the one who rules in this world without having real rights to do so. And people tend to find their comfortable place in this world, and even come up with reasonable explanations for the current terrorist order: we have this and that bad, because we are hindered by such and such enemies, because we have an unfortunate fate, because our circumstances have turned out so unfavorably... And once all these obstacles are removed, that's where we will live happily and prosperously!

Only the true meaning of events is only clouded by such explanations. The biblical view of things assumes that in the beginning of everything there really was a meaning, or rather, God's plan for this world, and therefore for each of us. It is not as easy to solve as a crossword puzzle or solve as a mathematical problem. Rather, man recognizes it in his life by listening to his conscience, reason, and feelings, and guided by the Word of God, and on this path he may find wonderful discoveries—it is such discoveries that sometimes make him give up comfort and abruptly change his way of life in order to follow the revealed Meaning of All Life.

What it will be depends ultimately on each of us. For some, it consists in experiencing as many pleasures as possible and accumulating as much wealth as possible, but such a materialistic approach looks quite repulsive. Some people put the service of high ideals at the head of their lives, such as art or science, or the political transformation of society, but it often turns out that behind these high desires there is also a thirst for acquisition: world fame, power over people, refined intellectual pleasures. Someone is serving other people, like the sick, or the poor, or even just members of their family, and that's wonderful... Unless at the end of life a person comes to the conclusion that he did not have a life of his own, if he is not disappointed in his service.

"Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you," says Christ (Matthew 6:33). What a vague call! It is clear how to seek fame or money, but how to seek the Kingdom and truth? What is He talking about? It seems to me that here he calls us precisely to search for the great, authentic Meaning of our life. The rest: prosperity, comfort, a reasonable social order, will follow by itself, that is, it will either arise, or... We will learn to do without all this and not suffer. And this main meaning of life can be different for everyone, it cannot be described by any universal formula. "In my Father's house are many mansions," Christ says elsewhere (John 14:2).

What this Kingdom is like, in what sense God is our Father, how His truth can be sought – there is a lot to be said about this, but still there is no better way to say it than in the Gospel. But we can be sure that if God is our Father, then there is a meaning in everything that happens to us, even in suffering, and he will one day reveal himself to us if we really want to.

2. The Voice of Cold Is Thin

There is one beautiful image in the Bible that is not often remembered – it is lost behind other images, much more sonorous and colorful. Elijah, the great prophet, in a difficult time for himself, when the Israelites persecuted him and worshipped idols, asked the Lord to appear to him Himself. The answer was given to him as follows: "Go out and stand on the mountain before the face of the Lord, and behold, the Lord will pass by, and a great and mighty wind will tear the mountains and break the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord is not in the wind; after the wind there is an earthquake, but the Lord is not in the earthquake; after the earthquake there is fire, but the Lord is not on fire; after the fire there is a blowing of a gentle wind, and there is the Lord." In Slavonic, the final words sound even brighter and more mysterious: "The voice of cold is subtle, and there is the Lord" (1 Kings 19:11-12).

Elijah was all flame and storm. He denounced the king and destroyed the pagan prophets, brought down fire from heaven and was himself taken up to heaven in a chariot of fire. It is no coincidence that it was about him that our ancestors spoke when they heard a thunderstorm: this is the prophet Elijah rolling through the sky. It is to such a prophet that the Lord shows in the most graphic way that He enters human life not in a whirlwind, not in an earthquake, not in a flame, but in something so quiet and inconspicuous that it is very difficult even to translate this expression into any modern language. One can object and be surprised, because the Law on Mount Sinai was given to the people just in an earthquake, and more than once the flames brought down from heaven confirmed that the Lord is God (including through the prayers of Elijah), and even the Lord answered Job from the storm. All this is true.

But the Old Testament itself is rather about something else: about how the Lord chose an inconspicuous and unfamous people. The Egyptians had great pyramids, the Babylonians had canals, the Sumerians invented the first written language, and the Phoenicians invented the first alphabet. All these peoples created great and glorious states, a powerful culture, and spread their influence over the surrounding countries... but the ancient Hebrews had nothing to boast of but God. As a special honor for Solomon, the most noble and richest king of Israel, the Bible mentions that the Egyptian pharaoh himself gave his daughter to him! When you read this, you understand what the Jews looked like in the ancient Near East. Even to their sworn enemies, the Philistines, they were inferior in cultural development: later they learned to work iron.

And so the Lord reminded them that the purpose of the chosen people in this world is not in glory and power, not in state greatness and not in cultural and technological superiority, but in something completely different. The same is true of the New Israel, the Church. After all, all the most important things that we find in the New Testament are not given in storm and fire, but namely, that "in the voice of cold is subtle." The birth of the Infant in the cave, the conversations with the fishermen on the shore of the lake, the Supper with the disciples in the upper room of a private house – can all this be compared with the royal feasts of Herod, with the splendor of the temple rites, with the power of the Roman army and the many learning of the scribes and Pharisees? But the Lord did not appear in all this.

Today, as in the time of Elijah, as in the time of Christ, the outer, pagan or atheistic world amazes with many, but above all, with its brilliance and noise. You turn on the TV, open a news site on the Internet - whirlwinds, earthquakes, and flames fall on you. Not very conscientious journalists consciously try to give each news the most biting headline or announcement, and preferably with a negative one. If you present a small scandal as a global disaster, the reader will be hooked by such a headline, he will click on the link, listen for a second to the TV announcer's mumbling – even if the essence of the event disappoints him, but for a minute or two his attention will be drawn, which means that the goal has been achieved.