The question concerning the meaning of life should not be taken as unanswerable. It has a reasonable answer and one that should satisfy even skeptics.

People often find themselves in a situation where the meaning of life eludes them and they find themselves in a state of hopelessness. The difficulties and hardships of life, however, do not render life meaningless. In fact, they provide meaning for life.

In thinking about this often vexing question, the first thing we must do is to separate my life from my being. This separation is implied whenever a friend asks, “How’s life treating you?”

Our being is set in the context of life much as a person in a rowboat is set in waters that may be turbulent. The rower is clearly distinguishable from the water, though its turbulence may have an important effect on him.

Thus, there are two meanings for the word “life,” one internal, the other external. In the first instance, life is what animates a person without which he is dead. The second sense of the word refers to the situation in which a person is placed. This is the life we face. Many who deny that life has any meaning restrict their understanding of life to the first sense of the word and therefore lose sight of the meaning of life that surrounds them, even the effect it has on life itself.

Therefore, a professor of history at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Yuval Noah Harari, can say, speaking for many: “As far as we know from a purely scientific viewpoint, human life has absolutely no meaning. Humans are the outcome of blind evolutionary processes that operate without goal or purpose.”

Such a view excludes “life” that is external to them and consequently prevents them from responding to the question, “Does life (the life that we all face) have any meaning?”

An analogy may be helpful. Imagine a football team that has no opposition. It is free from any form of resistance. It cannot lose, which may seem, at first, to be a dream come true. Without another team to stand in its way, it can move down the field fearlessly and effortlessly. Every play would be a touchdown. But it would have no drama. It would have no meaning. It would not be a game and, consequently, no one would bother to come out to watch its predictable, repetitive, boring performance.

Opposition provides a team with meaning. The presence of an opposing force creates the need and even the desire to rise above it. Competition takes place in which the players on both sides realize the need to improve, to be more skilled, to out-perform their opponent. Then and only then does the game become meaningful and of sufficient interest to draw spectators. The players on both teams improve as individuals. They can thank their opposition for making them stronger.

The great lyric poet, John Keats, wrote a letter to his brother, dated 1819, in which he referred to this world of suffering as a “vale of soul-making.” Because of his family’s history of illness, his medical training, and the epidemic that was sweeping through London, he was intimately acquainted with suffering. In addition, Keats himself was suffering from tuberculosis and would pass away at the tender age of 25. “Do you not see,” he wrote:

“how necessary a World of Pains and troubles is to school an Intelligence and make it a soul.”

The purpose of suffering, therefore, is to make us stronger, to convert a mere undeveloped individual into a “soul” or a more fully realized person. In a Christian context, we need difficulties to surmount in order to become saints. Suffering can transform a spark into a flame. And surely the saints were well-versed in suffering.

George Will, in his 1984 book, Statecraft as Soulcraft, adopts Keats’ words and applies them to politics. The ultimate meaning of the government, he argues, with all its laws, rules and regulations, is to help its citizens to become better human beings.

Governments, unfortunately are often delinquent in their regard for the souls of their citizens.

Life has meaning because it provides the stimulus, the wake-up call, and the incentive for each of us to rise from lethargy and become more complete persons. Life has meaning, as God’s will has meaning. We should realize that life, with all its challenges, is our ally and not our adversary.