Eccelsiastes

Day 175

Okay.....so the shopping trip was a blast! We wore ourselves out by 1;00 and hadn't even eaten lunch or been to the mall yet!!!!  :)  So we met some friends for lunch and reminisced about the old days.  :)   Then we finally hit the mall until 6:00 that night and we still "had" to go to Target...which we were all excited about!  This one even had a Starbucks in it!! Wahoooo.....rest and got off our feet a bit and grabbed a yummy, sugar free drink for me.  We thought we'd be home by 7:00pm...we weren't....we were still at Target.  Oh then I needed a bite...then one more run through back to Mardel's to see if they had something I forgot to look for the first time,  then to the Dollar Tree because heaven forbid we leave the city and NOT go there.  I mean, we had spent an hour at Lowe's; almost 2 hours at Hobby Lobby and not nearly enough time at Mardel's the first time.  We laughed ourselves silly!  Absolutely silly!!!  And finally pulled into our driveways just after 9:30 that night.  We were beat and our husbands were glad we were finally home!!  We never dreamed we'd be that late getting home.  Next time though, we're getting a hotel room!!!!! hahahahahahaha!

Dusty and I have done South  Beach for 8 days now (6 days more to go on Phase 1) and I've lost 5 pounds and Dusty's lost 4 in just a week! We are doing really good but will be ready to add a few things back into our diet in phase 2.  

So we've finished reading all of Eccelsiastes.  We'll start Song of Solomon tonight .  I'm just going to summarize the whole book here.   The Teacher of Ecclesiastes finds that, after examining every area of life, that there is just bitterness, futility, and meaninglessness.  However, he learns to change his focus and puts his energies toward pursing a relationship with God and life then takes on a whole new meaning.  Ecclesiastes explores the spiritual significance of life, revealing the folly of searching for knowledge, wisdom and pleasure without  acknowledging God's timing  and involvement in everything. We discover the loneliness of workaholics, status and power before God; we are transformed as we embrace the practicalities of godly wisdom; and the Teacher's admonition that death comes to all shakes us out of our lethargy and stirs us to seek God early in life.  

The book of Ecclesiastes resounds with the message that life is not a puzzle to be solved.  It reminds us to view life as God's good gift to us, rather than to bog down the analysis of life. God wants you to enjoy your life and to find meaning and purpose in it.  BUT!!! The only way He can accomplish His purpose is when we allow Him to fill the emptiness of our searching hearts with Himself.

The short of it.....life is meaningless without God.  

tomorrow:  all of Song of Solomon