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Key Bible Verse: Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength Deuteronomy 6:4-5. Bonus Reading: Isaiah 53:1-6

Jewish psychiatrist Victor Frankl had spent years researching and writing a book on finding meaning in life. Arrested by the Nazis during World War II, he arrived in Auschwitz stripped of everything—property, family, possessions—but with his manuscript hidden in the lining of his coat.

"I had to surrender my clothes and in turn inherited the worn out rags of an inmate who had been sent to the gas chamber," says Frankl. "Instead 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 Shema Yisrael (today's Key Bible Verses).

"I interpreted this 'coincidence' as a challenge to live my thoughts instead of merely putting them on paper."

Later, reflecting on his ordeal, Frankl wrote in his book Man's Search for Meaning, "Nothing in the world so effectively helps one to survive even the worst conditions as that knowledge that there is a meaning in one's life. … He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how."

—Craig Brian Larson in Illustrations for Preaching and Teaching

My Response: I'll thank God that I know the "why," and ask for endurance to bear the "how."

Thought to Apply: Jesus did not come to explain away suffering or remove it. He came to fill it with His presence.—PAUL CLAUDEL (French diplomat, author, playwright)

Adapted from Illustrations for Preaching and Teaching (Baker, 1993) by permission.

Copyright © 2007 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine. Click here for reprint information on Men of Integrity.

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Prayer for the Week

Keep me, Lord, from resenting the tests You bring to bear. Help me accept the toughening process You've prescribed for me.

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