Meaning Journal Revisited - Change

Here is my entry today:

What can I change about me that would be meaningful? How could i be more focused on the glory of God?

Meaning

When I was about 5 I used to wonder what things meant a lot. The specific question, "What does it all mean?" didn't come up much, it was more, "Why am I looking out of these eyes and not someone elses?", "Why am I me?", and "Why can't I be somewhere else at the same time as I am here?"

I spent a lot of time pondering these questions and then just stopped. I just accepted that I was me and it didn't matter why. I remembered recently my childhood ponderings when reading the Bible. I was reading the book of Ecclesiastes 1:2
"Meaningless! Meaningless!"says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless!Everything is meaningless."

Everything is meaningless, Solomon wrote. Solomon wrote that the things, pleasures, and work of this world are meaningless. So does that mean that there aren't answers to my childhood questions? No, the things of this world are meaningless, only God grants us meaning in our lives. So the answers to my childhood questions are:

• "Why am I looking out of these eyes and not someone elses?"
  Because these are the eyes God wanted me to have
• "Why am I me?"
  Because God planned me before the world was created
• "Why can't I be somewhere else at the same time as I am here?"
  Because this is exactly where I need to be

If everything is meaningless unless I have God in my life, why would I want to be anywhere else?

my prayer:

Dear Lord, please help me to get to know you better, to get to know how awesome, powerful, and limitless your love is. Help me to do the impossible and understand how much you love me enough that I will trust your will Lord!

Amen

Everything is Meaningless

For a while now I have been keeping a Meaning Journal. Every few days I write about meaning; what has meaning to me, how I can make meaning, and what have I done in a given day/week/month that has meant something. Yesterday while writing my meeting journal I received a nudge from God to search for the word meaning on BibleGateway.com.

This is what came up for meaning:

Ecclesiastes 1:2
² "Meaningless! Meaningless!"
says the Teacher.
"Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless."

Ecclesiastes 1. Solomon wrote that everything is meaningless; everything of this world. So, to create meaning we have to create outside of this world; witness, fill our lives with the word, and pray. This is how we create meaning in our lives because everything else is meaningless. Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes as a warning to those who think they can be satisfied with what the world has to offer. Solomon had tried it all. He had taken of all the pleasures the world had to offer. He could speak with experience. All is vanity and vexation of spirit. Nothing under the sun offers any permanent profit. In the end, the wise man is he who fears God and keeps His commandments

My meaning affirmation is; I will make meaning by praying to God to help me surrender to his will and live my life to his glory. My life in this world can only have meaning through him.

I pray,

Dear Lord, please help me to live my life in a way that is pleasing to you, even when I don't want to. Please help me to desire a God pleasing life and to work towards your glory, not mine.

Amen.

An excerpt from my meaning journal - Prayfullness and Meaning

12:31 1/13/2009
Lately when I enter this journal I have been starting to think, why is this important? Why is it important to journal about meaning? As I journal this I realize this is resistance (my inner crtic) talking. Contemplating meaning is important. Right now the most meaningful thing I am doing is trying to live a prayerful life; a prayerful life isn't exactly a clear concept.

As far as I understand it it means to live constantly in prayer, to surrender to God's will and to take action based on what he wants for me? God has a relationship with me so he wants to know what I want as well so asking for things is also prayerful. Since God loves me he wants me to talk to him about my hopes, fears, and wants and as promised he will always have an answer.

Since God promises an answer to all of my prayers; living a prayerful life is definitely the most meaningful thing I can do.