Rabbi Harold Kushner, author of the bestselling book When Bad Things Happen to Good People, tells the story of a man who once came to him for counseling. “For the first time in my life,” the man confided to Kushner, “I attended the funeral of someone my own age. I didn’t know him all that well, but we worked together, and talked from time to time. Apparently, it was a massive brain aneurism. He just went to bed one night and never woke up. They have already replaced him at the office; and I understand his wife and children are moving to another state to be closer to her parents. Two weeks ago, this guy was working fifty feet from my desk, and now it’s as if he never even existed.”

The man continued, “Rabbi, I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep since. I keep thinking that it could have been me; that one day I will die, and people will mourn me for a week or two, and then move on with their lives. It’s like a rock thrown into a pond. For a few seconds, there are ripples; but as soon as the water settles, everything returns to normal. Shouldn’t someone’s life have more significance than that?”

Kushner shares this story because he is convinced that what truly haunts us—indeed, what sometimes keeps us awake at night—is not the fear of death. It is the fear that, in the greater scheme of things, our lives will not have mattered; that as far as the world is concerned, our brief sojourn here is of little consequence. If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? If a person lives and dies, and the world just continues on as it always has, was that person ever really alive?

I think Kushner may be on to something. A lot of the people who set up a counseling appointment with me, come into my office wanting to discuss a certain issue. However, in the course of the conversation, I begin to discern that the issue the person initially planned on discussing is actually the symptom of a much deeper problem—namely, this person’s desperate search for meaning and purposefulness. Their lives may be successful or unsuccessful, filled with pleasure or filled with strife. But do their lives, in fact, mean anything?

To put it a different way, the question that tugs at most of us, day in and day out, is “Why am I here?” Is my life worth anything? Would my sudden absence leave the world poorer, or just less crowded? It’s not an easy question to answer; but in my experience, it is an even harder one to avoid. The need for meaning in our lives is not a biological need, like the need for food or sleep. Neither is it a psychological need, like the need for acceptance or self-esteem. Ultimately, it is a religious need, a thirst that rises up from our very souls. Hence, the only way to answer it is to look to the One who put us here in the first place. The next time you are wrestling with the question of whether your life has any meaning, consider the cross and what Christ was willing to do to win back your life. That should tell you everything you need to know about how much you are worth!