Day 3608 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Ecclesiastes 1:2 NIV

The measure of a matter’s merit is what makes it mean what it means, and yet we live within a world that then seems so filled with so much that means so little that maybe life itself might not mean much.

For the measure of merit is what makes a matter matter, the matter then meaning the meaning of the matter which then only matters as it means something. But that’s the curiosity of life isn’t it? Indeed, is this not in fact the overall experience of life itself, a matter meant to mean something, only found in finding meaning? And do we not undertake this matter by trying to measure what might mean most as compared only against what then means less? And in this, are we the ones fit to find the fine line between the firm and the finite?

Is this not the line over which all matters which mean something are still found, but still waiting for us to find them?

It’s quite amazing to me the questions that we start asking as life grows toward our getting old. I’m a day closer there now in what is a birthday, this grand celebration that I’ve all but come around to hating as in me I find little of matter worth celebrating. Wasn’t always that way. No, as kids we adore this personal holiday, a day filled with frills and thrills as thought about within a wonder as to what awaits within the parties planned and the gifts then too on their way.

And it seems as though this measure of our meaning matters for quite some time, these days upon which we gather our friends and loved ones near to celebrate us as these apparent little gifts given to them who give gifts to us. Never made all that much sense to this old soul I have. After all, this birth of which we celebrate, it was literally the one moment, the one action, the lone undertaking in which we had the least amount of input. And so why am I being celebrated when this matter is measured by how little involved I was in it happening?

Indeed, as I sit here halfway through this birthday today I find myself wondering into a wandering as to where the meaning is in all of this. Why does it matter as much as it still might to most? In fact, what does it mean that I find that this day means less than those around me do? And if this day is then to them a matter which measures as more important and thus of more meaning in their measure as to what matters, then why is it not them that we celebrate?

Why me?

Perhaps it’s a matter of my finding that I’ve found little meaning in my time. And that’s not for lack of trying, no, it’s more of anything simply the overall status quo. For such is life in this land in which it’s lived only to be lost. It’s but a grand journey spent seeking enjoyment in order to try and ensure the joy outweighs the days spent jaded. Yes, to be jaded is to be bored or tired or otherwise unable to offer up the often expected enthusiasm that we see so many others pretending they’ve still to give.

Why not me?

Have I run out of life’s enjoyment? No. Is my life empty or cold or lacking in something? No. Do my days find me downcast or disheartened? Sometimes, but that’s not the matter that matters either. And so why do our birthdays mean less the more of them we have? Is it the repetition of it all? Is it the fading away of friendships which leave us fewer invitations to send out? Is it the health worries making cake and ice cream somewhat scary ventures?

Is it just me?

Maybe it is for it’s something that’s there every other day of the year as much as it is today. Maybe then that it’s a birthday day today doesn’t mean anything in regard to this meaning to make life matter. Maybe it’s not in the numbers. Maybe it’s rather measured in the counting of the numbers, or perhaps the recounting more than anything. Does that give life its meaning? Seems closer at least. I mean even Scripture tells that to number our days is to undertake an outlook that leans toward our gleaning of a heart of wisdom.

Is wisdom then meaning found? And if it is, then where is it? Where is wisdom? What is wisdom? Is it not growth? And thus is it not too humility and modesty and the honesty that sees that honestly we both can and thus should continue to grow? Once we’ve reached a certain age and our physical growth starts to wane, is not growing in mind and spirit the only measures we’ve left to measure? Is this not then evidence that wisdom is a matter of growth, meaning then that meaning might be too?

Yes, is not meaning only measured in the growth that glories to seek it? And is this not in fact the last journey undertaken in life? The search for meaning?

Those kids we talked about above didn’t really seem to care about any of this, did they? Teenagers don’t either, too busy with cars and girlfriends and school dances and picking schools to attend after finishing school, only paying for it this time. Doesn’t seem as if I remember wondering as to the meaning of anything when I was in my 20’s. No, what meant most then was still grades and looking good, feeling good becoming more of a struggle, but one not too difficult as to have become a divestment.

No, seems that many of those disagreements meet us in later years. I’ve been here 37 of them as of today, and well, I’m still just now looking for meaning. Problem now is that it seems that we often look for it only behind us as if it’s already met us and we just missed it. Did we? Could we? Is the meaning of our life, of life in general, so general or generic that we could miss it? Seems kind of cruel if you ask me, that God would make all of this a matter which only mattered behind us.

Seems kind of counter His conscription in fact.

For most of the hope as held within His Word is also held ahead. It’s measured in things unseen, matters uncertain, measures unknown. Is this not the closest we come to meeting our meaning? In hope? In curiosity? In this audacious if not auspicious insistence as to the substance of faith as measured in that it matters and means more as days go by? Is there not always some hint of meaning found waiting within this strange certainty as to the uncertain as seen only in faith finally teaching us to walk not by sight?

And thus is meaning something we can’t see?

Seems so to me. After all, as I’ve said above and plenty in the past, I’ve spent a great many moments and memories looking for meaning in life, for life. Indeed, within my life I’ve sought meaning in so many places only to find that all of them somehow ended up only proving unable to prove it or provide it or define it or defend it. If anything, it seems clear to me now that almost all of those places I sought meaning only defunded it, debated it, destroyed it if not actively tried to debunk it.

Yes, I’ve sought meaning inside things hanging on a wall in the form of athletic accolade or academic accomplishment. I’ve tried to buy it within collectibles and novelties and other such widely agreed upon rarity as treasure found sifting through trash, most of it going eventually right back. I’ve searched for it on a screen, little images flashing anything from the fading fun of video games to the not so easily faded filth that’s stained both my eyes and my nights.

I’ve sought meaning in making friends, and then too in mostly trying to make them stay. I’ve looked for it in love, finding little thereof to measure up long enough to have lasted. Thought it might be in trying to see the things that I’ve always wanted to assume were there, only to find that it was always my imagination painting the impossible. Yes, I’ve looked for meaning in making money, but as mentioned above found a better measure in spending it more than anything.

Wondered as to whether meaning might be made within making something, my way to something, myself into something. Worked for a while but I’m still looking.

Seems as though I’ve sought it in so many ways only to find it within none of them as I sit here still on that same hunt to make my life seem to mean something. But all this talk of late as to wars we wage and the many from which we run has left me wondering if meaning might have been waiting within all the things from which we’re running or against which we’re gunning. For indeed, anymore in life it seems that most of our days find us finding ways to either fight against the things we don’t like or rather just run away from what we’re afraid to fight.

And this constant plight has caused a fright that’s stolen many a night to the search of somewhere better to hide or a better way to fight for that place to run and cower in a lack of courage to consider the measure of what matters.

Is this life? Running always in fear or fighting constantly to avoid what we face? Is this to be our only story in this place? Just this race to evade what pervades or evict what convicts?

No, I refuse to accept that His purpose for us is so pointless as that. Rather I’m coming to believe that perhaps His purpose and thus our meaning are conceived and perceived within the problems we face, just not as the problems we face but rather the growth they bring and the faith they buy. For as we talked about a bit above, are not both wisdom and thus too meaning matters measured in growing both in and toward them?

Yes, I so indeed seem to believe that meaning is always held within that elsewhere as defined by whatever He sends our way next and wherever said gifts delight to deliver us as defined in the up ahead, however hard or uncertain it may seem or be seen. For His Word promised that His plans for us are for our good, so long as we love Him that is. And so it seems a tragedy in transit to despise His design, for such done for so long will only cause us to call into question whether or not we should love the One who is the Son who asks us to share in what it is to suffer.

But what if we could love that life lived in loss? Might some of this struggle make more sense than our often only fighting against? Might meaning itself be there waiting just beyond the wars we wage and the wages we’ve won? Isn’t meaning the opposite of a life lived in sin? Indeed, I’ve found that it’s the last place we start looking as I’ve looked always only everywhere and to everything else and yet it’s all proved only to always be never enough to declare the stuff of meaning.

And yet I want to find meaning as these days and weeks and years start their process of waning within what is this day called my birthday. And since most everything here is meaningless, as measured within my trying so mightily to make it all mean something, or mostly to help me think I mean something, well then I guess this means that meaning is elsewhere.

For as we read here, and quite the same throughout the majority of what’s become one of my favorites books in the Bible, everything is meaningless. And what’s amazing to me, alive and active as it is, is that this idea hit me in such a new way as I read through this Word in Ecclesiastes the other day. I’ve long thought it merely meant that nothing had meaning, that everything was thus without reason or perhaps even reality then. Yes, always thought the writer meant that nothing was worth anything.

But no, just that worth as won within the weight of what does mean something is won elsewhere. Meaning that meaning isn’t here. Because meaning isn’t made within what we make or make ourselves try to mean. It’s not a matter made within making our way to living a life that goes our way. Our way is what’s meaningless as we cannot be the ones who define what meaning is. That’s God’s job, just the same as He insists upon wisdom. Yes, meaning and wisdom and purpose and the point of this pursuit of something uncertain that we call life, it’s all God’s to define.

Doesn’t this mean then that faith in Him is what meaning is? For what’s a life lived without that hope? What’s a life lived without struggle, aside from impossible? What do we win by winning this war to run away from the wars we’re supposed to face? Can we see His face in any other place than within that faith which promises that one day we will see what all of this was meant to be? He’s prepared that place, and promises that once there we’ll see in full what we can only then know in full as we find there that we have always been fully known.

And so maybe the meaning of life isn’t what we know but rather the more we don’t. And maybe then meaning isn’t meant for us to find or figure out but is rather a matter waiting for us to figure out that He’s already found it. Yes, maybe the meaning of life is looking beyond what we’ve made of it trying to make it mean something that made sense to us. Perhaps meaning is measured only in meeting this moment in which we stop trying to make it mean what we think it should.

Maybe meaning is meant for us to wait for it. After all, as read here, meaning is elsewhere. For it’s not in the things we have nor the more we’ll still come to want. It’s not measured in how impressively our lives measure in what is a consensus of mere competition as run by so many in this saddened society. Simply because it’s not something given so easily as to let us be the ones who find it or force it or form it from formulations found by thinking we can find it in or of things found down here.

No, meaning means more than assuming it might be found anywhere other than elsewhere. For if we find meaning in life, for life, of life, then odds are we’ll stop growing in life, for life, toward life. And this again seems the last thing He meant for this life to mean.

After all, Christ came to lay down His life as lived down here and did so as to show that life means something more than all that we try to fill it with or define it by or buy in order to feel it filled as if this might be how it defined. No, life is worth more than what we see, what we hold, what we can only really assume we think we might know. And so I’ll take today and try to start getting out of my way as stood in the way of the Way who is the Life.

Yes, life has meaning, and so too much done and won within it. But if all life means is only what we do or want or win within, well then we’ll doubt it worth it whenever it asks that we let go of what we want, sacrifice what we’ve won, even embrace the humility found and felt in admitting that much of what we’ve done and will still come to do shouldn’t be done at all. Indeed, we will struggle to find what this life means so long as we think that it should mean what we want it to.

For still the storms will come and mistakes will too be made. And thus these things, while they mean something, they are not meaning. For meaning has a meaning all its own. Let us then not get lost again in trying to make what means something prove all there is to meaning. No, it must be bigger than that, bigger than this, bigger than me, bigger than you, bigger than us.

Because I believe that God is beyond all such measure as material and monotony and misunderstanding. And if He’s bigger than everything, then I just have to believe that meaning must be too.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold