Psychologist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl (1905–1997) describes the denigrating horror of the Nazi concentration camps:
In the camps, even the life that was considered worthy only of death was fully exploited to its absolute limit. What a devaluation of life, what a debasement and degradation of humankind!… Were we not told often enough in the concentration camps that we were “not worth the soup,” this soup that was doled out to us as the sole meal of the day, and the price of which we had to pay with the toil of digging through the earth? We unworthy wretches even had to accept this undeserved gift of grace in the required manner: as the soup was handed to him, each prisoner had to doff his cap. So, just as our lives were not worth a bowl of soup, our deaths were also of minimal value, not even worth a lead bullet, just some Zyklon B. [1]
After his release, Frankl became known for his radical insistence on saying “yes to life in spite of everything”:
It is life that asks the questions, directs questions at us—we are the ones who are questioned! We are the ones who must answer, must give answers to the constant, hourly question of life, to the essential “life questions.” Living itself means nothing other than being questioned; our whole act of being is nothing more than responding to—of being responsible toward—life. With this mental standpoint nothing can scare us anymore, no future, no apparent lack of a future. Because now the present is everything as it holds the eternally new question of life for us. Now everything depends on what is expected of us. As to what awaits us in the future, we don’t need to know that any more than we are able to know it. [2]
Facing imprisonment under German occupation, Dutch Jewish writer Etty Hillesum (1914–1943) expressed her love for life:
“Reposing in oneself” … probably best expresses my own love of life: I repose in myself. And that part of myself, that deepest and richest part in which I repose, is what I call “God.” In Tide’s [Hillesum’s Christian friend] diary I often read, “Take him gently into Your arms, Father.” And that is how I feel, always and without cease: “as if I were lying in Your arms, oh God, so protected and sheltered and so steeped in eternity.” As if every breath I take were filled with it and as if my smallest acts and words had a deeper source and a deeper meaning.…
The reality of death has become a definite part of my life; my life has, so to speak, been extended by death … by accepting destruction as part of life and no longer wasting my energies on fear of death or the refusal to acknowledge its inevitability. It sounds paradoxical: by excluding death from our life we cannot live a full life, and by admitting death into our life we enlarge and enrich [life]. [3]
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Sarah Young; Jesus Calling
I speak to you from deepest heaven. You hear Me in the depths of your being. Deep calls unto deep. You are blessed to hear Me so directly. Never take this privilege for granted. The best response is a heart overflowing with gratitude. I am training you to cultivate a thankful mind-set. This is like building your house on a firm rock, where life’s storms cannot shake you. As you learn these lessons, you are to teach them to others. I will open up the way before you, one step at a time.
RELATED SCRIPTURE:
Psalm 42:7 (NLT)
7 I hear the tumult of the raging seas
as your waves and surging tides sweep over me.
Psalm 95:1-2 (NLT)
Psalm 95
1 Come, let us sing to the Lord!
Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation.
2 Let us come to him with thanksgiving.
Let us sing psalms of praise to him.
Additional insight regarding Psalm 95:1-4: Songs, shouts, gratitude, and praise erupted from those gathered to worship the Lord. While there are certainly many examples of stillness and silence in God’s presence taught and illustrated in Scripture, there are equally as many examples of raucous worship. Both peaceful silence and enthusiastic praise are appropriate expressions of worship to our great God.
Matthew 7:24-25 (NLT)
Building on a Solid Foundation
24 “Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. 25 Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock.
Additional insight regarding Matthew 7:24: To “build” on solid rock means to be a hearing, responding disciple, not a phony, superficial one. Practicing obedience becomes the solid foundation to weather the storms of life. See James 1:22-27 (below) for more on putting what we hear into practice.
James 1:22-27 (NLT)
22 But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. 23 For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. 24 You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. 25 But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it.
26 If you claim to be religious but don’t control your tongue, you are fooling yourself, and your religion is worthless. 27 Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.
