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In this first installment of The Search for Meaning, Howard Thurman uses the temptation of Jesus in the synoptic gospels as a framework for a conversation about those things we choose to devote our lives and energy to. Like Christ, we are no exceptions to the rule of God’s order and God’s will because of who or what we are or decide to be. Spiritual duality and internal conflict as it relates to the demands of state and country are also discussed.

Here Thurman speaks to the moment of truth as it relates to God’s purpose for our lives. Discovering the authentic meaning of our lives helps us to uncover the bearing our experiences have on that meaning. It is the experience by which the mind and the spirit and yes, the soul of man gets a confirmation that enables him to live into the meaning of his life not only with a sense of responsibility but with dignity and power.

For Thurman, the quest for value cannot be distinguished from the human experience of meaning. He suggests that ideas regarding value are not created in isolation within the mind, but they are “indigenous to the very life of personality.” The content of values largely reflects our communities of meaning and when one begins to develop a personal way of assessing them through her own experiences, she arrives at what Thurman terms a “priority of value.” This means that individual knowledge of…