What Are You Reading? – He is Meaningful

well hey ladies happy Monday morning I hope that you're having a great start to your Monday this morning but I wanted to go ahead and we're going to jump into Ecclesiastes that's where I've actually been reading so in this series of what are you reading and I just started it the other day and there was kind of a little bit of a it tied into sort of those moments where I guess you kind of have a devotional of sorts or just a moment of contemplating and thinking about God's goodness while on vacation. And I'm still on vacay mode, so on vacation mode. But I want you to jump with me to Ecclesiastes. And I'm going to be looking in chapter 1. And I'm just going to read 11 verses, but really focusing on verse number 2. So I'm going to go ahead and read this. And it says, now I'm using the NIV version. That's the Bible that I carry with me all the time. I have ESV at home, but NIV is what I've got with me today. So it says, round it goes ever returning on its course all streams flow into the sea yet the sea is never full to the place the streams come from there they return again all things are wearisome more than one can say the eye never has enough of seeing nor the ear is its fill of hearing what has been will be again what has been done will be done again there is nothing new under the sun is there anything of which one can say look this is something new it was here already long ago it was here before our time no one remembers the former generations and yet and even those yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow them so that's an uplifting message this morning isn't it um so i was reading and the word they are used as hevel where at the beginning where it says meaningless meaningless and if you use the ESV version which is the one I was studying at home it's vanity vanity all is vanity so we have this this feeling of vanity and this endless pursuit of things that just turn to nothing and actually the word that's used there that hevel I'm probably saying it wrong but hevel is means vapor or smoke and it takes me back to maybe you've read The Sound of music and or not read um seeing the sound of music and they say like you can never pin a cloud down you know when they're talking about maria um you know how do you catch a cloud how do you grab on to vapor it's just going to disappear and so that is something that came to mind when i was doing this um and reading this and part of that is because we're in the middle of this armor of god bible study and in the middle of doing this armor of god bible study um we were talking about faith and how faith is something in action right and it but it has to be based on truth it has to be based on something that is um you know that is fine that that is firm it has to be something firm it can't just be you can't just have faith in vapor it has to be something firm and true and um i shared with the ladies last week so on vacation um we went and saw the blue angels fly And so that's a, um, these elite, um, pilots who fly F-18s for the Navy and we got to see their show and I'm telling you, it was incredible. But my vantage point was from, um, from the, the runway, you know, we were down, not on the runway, but you know, we were watching near the runway, but we got this really neat gift for my dad for his birthday and he got to be up on this lighthouse. so his vantage point was totally different than mine and the neat part was there's a there's a there's a point there was a volunteer up on the lighthouse that was telling them that they fly 18 inches apart so they've worked their way down to flying 18 inches apart and um my vantage point you know we got to see them flying i just see how close they were actually flying together i mean 18 inches i don't know if that actually is but it's close to i mean it's not it's probably what about that i don't know um and so it was not far apart you could see how close they were together but so i got to look from underneath my dad and my brother who got to do this experience they got to see them flying straight at them and 18 inches apart and just how close that really was and so sometimes it's our viewpoint um of faith that can change that can change things correct so maybe it's our viewpoint with our life circumstances how those are. The other times the volunteer that was up there also told my dad that the the joystick that the Blue Angels hold it holds 40 pounds of pressure and the reason that they do that is because they don't want them to you know flinch and to respond and they're going to hit one of the other planes correct so they have to hold this 40 pounds of pressure for 45 minutes so just think the amount of weight that holds, but it prevents them from making mistakes and responding to something. And so I was saying this week, you know, it reminds me of God's word. And when we know his word, we can stand firm in faith, stand firm where we are in truth and God's truth, no trusting God, because he is our truth, right? Our belt of truth. He is the truth that he is. This word is the truth. And when we stand firm in it our emotions are not wayward we get to hold on to maybe it's 40 pounds of pressure and it's not easy sometimes but we don't flinch one way or the other correct and so looking at this passage in ecclesiastes and we're saying that everything is vanity that everything is meaningless all of life without god is meaningless it is just plain and simple and that's not an easy thing to um it's not an easy thing to actually come to realization of right that everything without God's purpose in it is actually meaningless it's here one day gone tomorrow I mean ashes to ash dust to dust correct but where I want us to then turn and just for some encouragement since that was kind of a um a passage that's like oh you know um Philippians 4 says finally brothers and sisters whatever is true whatever is noble whatever is right whatever is pure whatever is lovely whatever is admirable if anything is excellent or praiseworthy think about such things those things have purpose and they have meaning because they are tied in with the goodness of God and they are good things so think about those things so while everything in life maybe today you're in a place where everything does feel meaningless it's what is the point i think that or at least i struggle with this as a woman we we we want something to have a purpose and we want something to have meaning and a place and we want to um and a lot of times create and to develop things right um to create create and develop something that's meaningful but it's not meaningful if it's outside of God right where we need to be internally and we can then externally but internally we need to be at a place where we are resting in God's truth and we are resting holding on to it may not be resting sometimes you may have to hold on to that that pressure the pressure of his truth and hold on to it and hold on to those things that what does it say here hold on to whatever is true whatever is noble whatever is right whatever is pure whatever is lovely whatever is admirable if anything is excellent or praiseworthy think about such things hold on to those things because they have purpose and value so everything is not meaningless when we're holding on to god's truth out in the world yes we agree with ecclesiastes everything is meaningless but god is not meaningless and these things that are true and praiseworthy excellent admirable those good things that are gifts from god those are the good things that so hold on to them this week so I hope that gives you a little bit of encouragement thanks for staying on that long ride hopefully it wasn't too convoluted um and just cling to whatever is good this week hold on to that all right thank you and I hope that you have a great rest of your Monday

Originally published at warren.church.