Trying to Make Sense of Life

Ecclesiastes 6:1-7:29

15 Realizations Worth Considering When Trying to Make Sense of Life:

1. Realize that Chasing Money and Success for Money and Success’ Sake Will Never Fill our Void of Discontentment.

2. Realize that Who You Are Is More Important than What You Have.

3. Realize that It Is Better to Live Our Vanishing Life with Purpose, than to Waste It through the Pursuit of Pleasure.

4. Realize that remaining teachable before a sage trumps being entertained by the blissful ignorance of fools.

5. Realize that caving into the temptation of oppressing others leads the wise into moral compromise.

6. Realize that painful patience is better than succumbing to the price of impatient shortcuts to achieve success.

7. Realize that one easily offended inevitably plays the fool.

8. Realize that now is all that we have, so don’t overly romanticize the past.

“In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.”

― Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

9. Realize that wisdom tells us that we will either use wealth or wealth will use us.

10. Realize that wisdom gives us the ability to trust God with mystery.

11. Realize that we shouldn’t trust in our own righteousness or grandiose wisdom, nor should choose to be foolish.

12. Realize that wisdom is more powerful than power, for wisdom is power. (19-20) “ten rulers in a city”

"The proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel: To know wisdom and instruction,

to understand words of insight, to receive instruction in wise dealing,

in righteousness, justice, and equity; to give prudence to the simple,

knowledge and discretion to the youth—

Let the wise hear and increase in learning,

and the one who understands obtain guidance, to understand a proverb and a saying,

the words of the wise and their riddles. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge;

fools despise wisdom and instruction” (Proverbs 1:1-7).

13. Realize that if you live for the words of others, you will become fragilized by them.

14. Realize that gaining a dose of modest wisdom doesn’t arrive by accident, it comes through disciplined determination.

15. Realize that it is better to reflect on the importance of wisdom over folly and to do so in advance.

The Conferencing Dilemma with Mike Palmer and Nancy