04152023_LbT_Meaningful

The main ideas from this information are about the search for a meaningful life and the importance of having a clear purpose. The speakers discuss how having a bigger purpose, such as honoring God, can make even the small things in life more meaningful. They also mention the need to be present in the moment and to be aware of God's presence and work in their lives. They emphasize that finding purpose is a continuous process and that setbacks and challenges are part of the Christian journey. On today's episode of Living by Thriving, we all want to live a meaningful life, but what exactly makes a life meaningful? What parts of our life make our existence stand out from just the normal day-to-day routines and habits that we build up and seemingly even become mundane? In this episode, I'm happy to introduce a guest onto this podcast for the very first time. So, Logan, you quickly introduce yourself and welcome to the podcast. Thank you very much, Matthew. I'm glad to be a part of it. Well, yeah, I'm going to college right now. I'm going to be a PT. And I think something I've been reflecting on a lot is just what it really means to have a meaningful conversation with someone. I think I work at a social job right now, and I meet with clients every week, and they're on the bench with me for 50 minutes at a time. And so I've learned just what it really means to have a meaningful conversation with someone, whatever it looks like. And so I've been thinking about that a lot, and as Christians, too, I think there's many opportunities to just have meaningful conversations and meaningful moments with people, too. So I'm excited to talk more about it and get into it. Yeah, exactly. Thank you for the introduction, Logan. I think none of us here want to just go through our lives without experiencing things that matter to us, because I think both of us can relate on the point that we feel the struggle of going through the motions in a sense of you wake up, you do your activities, you go to bed, and you repeat that the next day and the next day. And I know when I look at the calendar, sometimes my eyes open up and I see, wow, it's April already, today's April 15th. We're already, what, almost one-third of the way through 2023, and it seems just like yesterday we were saying happy new year, oh, it's 2023 already. But I think that when we don't have a clear picture or perspective of why we do the things we do, I think that makes life more boring and in a sense less meaningful. Because if all we're doing really is just surviving day to day, getting through, then that tends to minimize the experiences that we get. It tends to make us distant even to those around us, because we're still there in the situation in the moment, but we're just not living it out. We're just existing. Do you get what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah. It's kind of like a passive living, it's not really present in the moment, meaningful in a way. Yeah, I think that's easy too, when you don't have an idea of maybe your greater why for your purpose in life, it's easy just to go through life living the day to day. Like you said, April already, a third of the year is over, just flies by. So, how do we find our why, and how does that relate to living a meaningful life, what do you think? Yeah, that's a great question, like how do we find our why, and I think a lot of people can approach this differently according to their perspective, but I guess as Christians, our why should be a clear resounding why, why do we do what we do, because we seek to serve God, we seek to follow Him and His ways, we try to follow the Lord first and foremost in our lives, and we do that by loving the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and loving our neighbors as ourselves, because He first loved us. And so when we show this love to one another, we can build the relationships that we have with people in our lives, both to people who are friendly to us and that we like talking to, and even people who may not be as friendly. And sometimes we can get into a problem with consolidation. If we tend to view people and tend to view experiences as a means to our own benefit, then what happens is that every experience and interaction gets turned into an agenda, an agenda for our own gain, and it becomes selfish, it points back to itself. But we realize as Christians, it's like, well, our calling is to God. Our audience is an audience of one, the Lord above, and so we know that He's watching us at all times, and we know that what we do in any circumstance is being viewed by the one above. And so when we have that perspective, we get our why, like, why are we doing this? We do this because we love God, and we do what we do because we want to glorify Him and please His name. And when we realize that we do this because we love God and not because we're trying to gain something or achieve some sort of reward from God or somebody else, then that's sort of liberating in a sense. It kind of frees us to view life more, okay, this is the situation God has placed me in. This is the moment and the people He has placed me in. There's thousands of years of human civilization. There's numerous, countless cities, locations, avenues, wherever. But yet God has placed you and me at this moment, in this time, in this state, to be here to record this podcast and do whatever we're going to do in our time to come. And so when we view perspective like that, it's a fascinating thing, and it gives us more of an inspiration to make the most of our time while we still have it. Yeah, so being present and understanding your why, that's interesting because I think when you don't have a why, it's hard to have really meaningful conversations or just meaningful experiences because you really just enter it in a state of mind that's really just focused on, oh, okay, this is just a conversation, we're just living our day-to-day lives, it's not really meaningful. But I think it's cool, as Christians, when we figure out our why, we know why we're living, and that's to honor God, then it turns into a bigger purpose. And I think when you have a bigger purpose, then things just become a lot more meaningful. And you know what's cool? If you can take, I think when you have a big purpose like that with God, even the little things become meaningful. I think the small things that we tend to miss, right? And so I think, for example, you know, driving in a car and looking outside and looking at a tree, you know, just like really small things, or like looking at a really nice, beautiful patch of flowers, just like little things that are like, hey, you know, I know who God is and I know why I'm here, I'm here to serve and honor God in whatever way He wants me to. That's great. That's generally our purpose, that's generally our why. But then to take that and continue living that out and seeing how God works throughout the day, seeing where His, you know, He's the author of everything, to see that, the creation everywhere around us, I think that's meaningful, to look at where God is active, how He's working through us, figuring out our purpose and our why. All that to say, it's a big umbrella, but we get the opportunity to look at these little things throughout our day and be like, hey, you know, that might not be meaningful to a lot of people, generally, like, you know, tree, just flowers, whatever it may be, or conversation, whatever. But I think when you have a bigger purpose and a bigger why, and God is the foundation behind that, then we get to look at these little things and be like, wow, that's amazing, because I know who God is and I know what my purpose is. But I think that takes time, and I think it takes presence, like you were saying, you've got to be present in the moment, you know, and I think there are a lot of things that can deter us from being present, including cell phones and a lot of other things, technology, but I think God really wants us to be present with Him, present with His people, and I think with that, then we start to understand, okay, what is my purpose? You start to live it out a little bit, I think you get to see that throughout the day, and I think a gift that God gives us is just little, meaningful gifts throughout the day, so I think this is just some things I've noticed with God, and I think that's, I think it is important to find purpose, and then with that bigger purpose in mind, then you start to see these little, like, meaningful things throughout the day that might not have been meaningful before, but now you're just like, wow, you know, that's pretty beautiful. Yeah, definitely, thank you so much for sharing again. I like how you approach this from, like, a small-to-big approach, in the sense that it's just a tree, right? Well, if that's your perspective, then yes, it's just a tree. Oh, it's just my time on this earth for an X amount of time, because I'm like a cosmic speck in the universal dust, and I'll be here today and gone forever. Well, then that's your perspective that shapes how you live, and it shapes how you view things as meaningful, or in this, in that case, the lack thereof. But I like as well that you mentioned earlier about purpose, because I remember, like, in high school, one of my teachers, he just, he asked a question, what's your purpose? He didn't give any qualifiers surrounding that, but he basically just asked, what's your purpose? Like, why are you doing the things that you do? And people give all sorts of reasons, that's for sure, but again, like, when we see our Christian purpose has a double impact, not only for eternity, but also now, or not just now, but also eternity, it magnifies the impact, and it's not something that we automatically snap into perfectly and think, okay, well, I've thought about it, so now I'm good. I prayed about it once, so now I'm good. Well, that's not how the Christian walk works. I think there's a misconception among people that if I follow after Christ, then I'm just going to be perfect immediately, or good things will happen to me soon. If they don't happen, then there's a setback. How come you're doing this to me, God? But maybe that could be for another day. But I think as well, it's like, our identity and purpose is in God, and although there are setbacks in our lives, we grow through something I like to call sanctification, which is basically the process that believers go through in their walk with God, and people like to view that as a straight line, where you are currently at this point on a graph, and eventually as you move to the right and you get older, you eventually get higher. It's a straight line. But I can test that visual, because if that were the case, then your life as a Christian should have started out in its worst possible state, and then things only got better from there. In reality, what happens in our lives, it becomes like a roller coaster. You have your highs and you have your lows, and in the midst of the chaos of that, it is easy to lose sight of God's perspective, and you get too caught up in the heat of the moment, where you may get to the point where you think, well, everything's so random and so chaotic, it's not actually meaningful, that's just the way it is. But when that happens, I think Christians especially need to remember they're probably zooming in too much into the moment. They need to zoom out a bit and view it from the eternal. Yes, because then, yeah, when you go through something hard or, you know, there are seasons of life we've all been through. I think times of, whatever it may be, sadness, anxiety, and fear, I think during those times, it's like we're in the storm, right? And it's hard to see the meaning behind it. Like, I remember a couple years ago, you know, my dad had a stroke, and our family was kind of getting really... things were getting very hectic, and my dad had a stroke, and it just felt like things were falling apart. And during that time, like, those times where it's hard, like, it's so hard to find God during those moments. And to speak about meaningfulness during that time, you don't see anything like meaningful about that. You just think it's hard, this is horrible, why is it happening to me, where is God? But I think looking at it now, reflecting on it, our family actually became stronger through that time, because we got to connect and share a lot of our pain and our struggle, and we just got to, like, support each other through it. So I think even during those times, where it seems like we're in the dark and we're alone, God is with us there. And what makes those times sweet and memorable is the lessons that we learn later reflecting on it. So I think during those times, you can't see that, though. It's like impossible. I think it's impossible to see. But later on, you reflect and you look back, and you're like, dang, I saw God work in this way. I saw my relationships or my family benefit in this way. Even though that time was hard, it was crazy, it was a storm, right? But it was meaningful in a long-lasting and powerful way that most people wouldn't think that would, it would usually be meaningful. So I think generally meaningful things come pretty quickly. Like, oh, we are in a conversation, we are looking at some, we're looking at a beautiful piece of art. Oh, it's very meaningful. Whatever, I don't know. I think it typically is very quick, and it's something that, yeah, you can look at and be like, yeah, that's meaningful. But I think really a lot of things that are truly meaningful happen over time, and we don't really see it because it's kind of inching forward day by day, little meaningful things like habits and routine. You know, brushing your teeth every day, that's not really meaningful until you look 20 years in the future, and you're like, I don't have cavities, and my teeth are pearly white because I brush my teeth a lot, and that brought a lot of meaning. That's a bad example. Brought a lot of meaning to my clean teeth. But I disappreciate. Disapprove, 9 out of 10, by the way. But I think over time, we're able to see these things build up. And so I think the journey and the process, I think a lot of times is the thing that's meaningful to us. Yeah, and as Christians, we get to join God in that the whole way, and that gives us a foundation so that when those troubling times do come, when the storm does come, we're rooted in that faith that God will provide, God will be with us, and it just brings up a lot of like, just it's more meaningful that way. So that's kind of what I think. Yeah. Yeah, and I appreciate your emphasis on the long-term perspective. The heat of the moment is powerful, but if we're not careful, we'll be carried away by it. We'll be burnt by it, maybe a better way to phrase it. But when we zoom out at the picture, like jumping a little bit back to the sanctification point at first, you notice the ups and downs, but at the end of all that, you still go up. You still grow closer, and that's through the trials by fire, as you experienced, as you said. When we view things in hindsight and look back, we see how God worked in our lives and in the lives of those around us, but if we jump back from perspective to when we were there five years ago, three years ago, whenever, we could not have seen that. We know God sees that because he transcends through time and he sees past, present, and future, but in our existence, what do we see? We only see the present and memories of the past and guesses at the future. And it's funny because we look at the Old Testament and look at other scriptural passages, we see the Israelites, they saw wonders and signs from God over and over again, and yet what happened? They forgot about it, and when they forgot about it, they disobeyed and they went astray, and thus God had to correct them. And looking at that from in the scriptures, we could point at it and say, wow, the Israelites were of such little faith, but then we look at our own lives and we see the times when we doubted God or we trusted God, and we see how he comes through in our lives. We see that, oh, God has been faithful to me, even if this is not how I wanted it to be. And recently, what I've been doing as well is I've been jotting down prayer requests I've made. It's so easy to forget answered prayers, and when we forget that God has answered our prayers, we forget that he has a purpose for our lives, even. And we forget possibly that our lives do have meaning, and we just wonder, I talk maybe, am I just talking to the ceiling, am I just talking to whoever, wherever, am I just going through the motions and all that, because we forget. So it's good to remember God's been faithful as he was faithful to the Israelites, as he was faithful to his chosen people, he is faithful now to us, even if his faithfulness comes in ways that we don't see and we don't realize in the moment. Yeah, that reminds me of the Israelites when they left Egypt, God's reminded them of Egypt, right? They quickly forgot, like, where they came from, you know? Like, they were slaves in Egypt, life was not good, and Moses brought them out, and they were quick to forget that, oh, God is good, God brought us out of slavery, and he's bringing us into this new land that's flowing with milk and honey, but they completely neglected that. And so that's why I think, like you were saying Matthew, like, reflecting and journaling, those are ways where we can remember God's goodness and remember things that were meaningful to us. And so I think for me, including, you know, those times of, you know, when we're in the storm, things are crazy, we don't see the things that are meaningful until we look back at it. So I think the best way to do that, yeah, is to be reflective, to journal, to actively, like, process and think back during those times, and to answer prayers too. When we pray, I think we often expect things quickly, you know, we're kind of talking about that theme of having that answered prayer right away, but a lot of prayers take time, and it takes, it just takes time, it's a journey, and I think it takes trust too, but I think a lot of prayers do get answered. Prayers do get answered, and sometimes they get answered in ways we don't really see until later, or they get answered in ways we weren't expecting. And so I think reflecting and journaling are two meaningful ways, and prayer too, are meaningful ways to look back on any moment, any time, any season of life, and to remember those prayers, you know, jotting down would be very helpful, I should start doing that too. Jotting down prayers, just to remember, and then look back and be like, hey, God answered this prayer, God answered this prayer, God, okay, he answered that prayer, but it was in a way I wasn't really expecting, and that takes time reflecting, so I think a lot of those meaningful moments of realization where we see God working come from reflecting and journaling, and I think I love that idea of like journaling down, or writing down different prayers, because I think that's just a sweet way to remember prayers, because I don't remember a lot of my prayers, you know, I just, I think that's hard for me to remember sometimes, but I think journaling is good too, actively processing what you're thinking, how you're reflecting, and then taking those journal entries and reflecting on those later, and just seeing where God has worked, I think that's just amazing. Yeah, it's definitely habits that I think we could improve upon, make more consistent, per se, of like, for the longest amount of time, I didn't jot down anything in like a book, or in like a notepad, or wherever, like, even now, as I mentioned earlier, like filling out these prayers and doing that, even that is still a bit abnormal to me, I guess it's like, part of the reason, actually the reason why I started picking that up is because I have to be training now, because I'm going to go on a summer missions trip to Yokohama, Japan in July, and so there's training sessions, or not sessions, but more like devotionals and stuff, you really have to build up your spiritual armor, spiritual weaponry, per se, like if we're not ready for all the tactics that the enemy can throw at us, then we will be unprepared, and it'll get a little bit off topic, but it's important to realize that spiritual warfare is a real thing, and it's important to stay engaged in all that, but back to what you said about journaling, it's very, very good practice to have, again, I don't really do that at the moment, but I feel like I've looked back at, like, childhood journals that I made like years and years ago, and just reflecting on them, I've wrote them down, probably not ever really expecting too much, but now, as you said, in the long term, I look at them again, and I see, wow, okay, this is how I viewed Christianity or childlike, this is how I had childlike faith, man, it's like, I had shifted away from that, like, through life, and of course, life itself, you have ups and downs, but I look at it, and it's like, well, maybe I need to go back a bit to the faith that I had back then. Childlike faith is vital for any Christian's walk, and so it's just something that, you know, you just don't expect to see until time flies, and then there you go. You know, so you had more faith as a child, looking at your journal entries, is that what you're saying? It's more of like, as you get older, you tend to question things more, you tend to look at things like critical analysis and things like that, and all that is not necessarily bad, per se, but at the end, what it all boils down to is you have to make a choice, you have to make a decision, do you either follow what God wants you to do in His will, or you don't, and of course, there are things you have to decipher, like, okay, is this God's will, am I doing the right thing, and all that, but you still have to make a decision. You can say yes, you can say no, and that's your right and your choice, but I guess just looking back, it's like, well, it's always like, of course it's yes, because X, Y, Z, but having that more of a mindset, that could help. Yeah, okay, that's got me thinking about a question, so thinking through childhood, where we are now, and growing up later in the future, I'm thinking, is there a difference between things we think of as meaningful as a child, and the things we think of meaningful, let me, meaningful things that we think about as a child, compared to meaningful things we think of now, what are like, what are some things that as a child, you grew up believing, maybe that was meaningful, or, that's a really good question, that's a really good question. I think, as a child, I didn't really think about these things as much, per se, like, you're kind of like, you're just going through, like, oh, like, there's things new that you discover, like, the world, you view it differently, it's like, you may be a little bit innocent, naive, or whatever, but meaningful things, like, you get to have fun, you get to hang out with some of your friends, play some games, or just hang out, stuff like that, like, having a fun time, I guess I would say is the most, like, meaningful, but I wouldn't even phrase it like that, per se, but, I guess it's, it's fun, yeah, just having fun, having a good time, like, you really don't have too many cares in the world, because your parents take care of things for you, and all you have to worry about is complaining about every little thing that goes wrong now, because they know that, but, just, when you grow up and you look back, you're like, oh, that was meaningful, because I just could, I could just have fun, you know, I didn't have to pay bills, you know, yeah, it's a simpler time, I guess, when you're younger, and it also can lead to nostalgia, where you look back, because as you get older, and you continue to pick up more and more responsibilities, and obligations, obviously, your perspective on things is going to change, and in a sense, what you view as meaningful changes, as well, you go from, man, I just want to, like, have fun, or a good time, to, oh, I need to support myself, I need to get good grades, so I can move on to the next grade, or not disappoint family expectations, or whatever justification that you put on yourself, and as you get older, you get more responsibilities, now I have work, I have a job, I need to make a decent salary to provide for my well-being, and expenses, and then, Lord willing, in the future, family, their expenses, and expectations, and being, taking care of things in the household, basically, the point I'm saying is that, as you get older, your definition of meaning changes, and you view things as, well, I shouldn't say this for everybody, but you can view things as more cynical, or view things as more twisted, as you get older, because you start to see what people can do, and you start to see that, yeah, people do good things, well, people do bad things, your parents may have sheltered you from bad news as you grow up, or maybe not, I don't know, but then you get older, you start to read the headlines, you start to see things that are going on, and you see some things that are just really messed up in the world, you see things that are injustices, that you want to see rectified, and I, even now, just thinking, it's like, Lord, it's like, I see these things going on, how come you don't deliver justice to those people faster? How come you let regimes, or you let, like, evil governments, and not to get political here, but people can fill in the blanks for those words, but they're viewing injustices, and wondering, how come, Lord, you don't hasten this? Why do you tarry, Lord, and forgetting his timing, his eternal perspective, that goes beyond my visibility? And you get to the point, as you get older, where you have questions that your parents can no longer answer, because when you grow up, your parents will give you an answer, and you will either accept it blindly, or you'll say, no, I don't think so, but you still have their answer as the final authority, as you grow up, but then, as you get past that phase of life, now, you have questions, you can look at questions people have been debating for years, generations, that don't have good answers, the problem of, the quote-unquote problem of suffering, problem of evil, philosophical debates that people have, and all sorts of things, and again, it's not necessarily bad to look at these things, but as you get older, if you get too caught up in the mess that the world is, then you can lose what God is trying to tell you in the moment, things that are meaningful. I also, I mentioned this in other episodes, but I believe it's something called the Serenity Prayer that I think is appropriate to mention, but I wanted to know if you had any other thoughts before. Yeah, yeah, well, hearing that, hearing you describe that made me think of just the process of going from a child, like growing up, of course, I think that whole process is meaningful in itself, because you're talking about becoming more aware of the world, looking at bad news, good news, and all this other stuff, I think there's meaning, I think that process is meaningful as we grow older, we start to see the world a bit more, we start, you know, news, and all that kind of stuff, and I think that's meaningful because it's, I think it's our way of maturing, and I think it's a way that God helps us grow to understand and see, you know, just that the world is full of hurt, you know, as a child, I think I was pretty sheltered too, you know, we watched PBS Kids, you know, we didn't, we didn't watch bad news or anything like that, or good news, we didn't watch news at all, but we just, I lived a very privileged life, and our parents, they protected us, I mean, they fed us, we were under a roof every night, very privileged, and I think growing up more and more, becoming more aware, and then living on my own, and I started living with roommates, just going into the real world, I think I've seen how, how much sin is in the world, and how much pain and struggle, and so I think through that process, though, I think it's meaningful to see these things, because I think it's God's way of revealing to us, and helping us become more aware of the need for Jesus, I think that's just a big thing too, how much the world needs Jesus, how much the world needs to hear about him, and so I think there's a lot of meaning behind that, if we were sheltered for the rest of our lives, I don't think that'd be meaningful, but I think the process of slowly, or maybe not slowly, becoming more aware of what is happening in our world around us, that process itself is meaningful, but when I was reflecting on that question, though, meaningful things in our childhood versus now, I, as a child, I didn't really think of a lot of things we did as meaningful, I think as, like you, I just thought of it as fun, like, oh, we're, we're playing video games, we're hanging out at the park, it's fun, great, but looking back, I think some of the biggest things growing up that were meaningful included time with family, I mean, I think every night we had dinner together, that was just super meaningful, just having conversations, sharing about our days, I remember watching Netflix with my dad a lot, we watched Garfield, I remember that being kind of meaningful, it was just a fun time where we just, like, nothing serious or crazy was happening, but we could just, like, watch a TV show and just have fun, and I played video games with my brother, that was fun, we would go to water parks in the summertime as a family, just memories like that, that was really meaningful, but I, I didn't experience those memories, I mean, I didn't experience those events or things we did as meaningful during that time, but again, like, we're talking about reflecting and journaling, looking back now, those were meaningful, but I, as a kid, I just thought they were fun, you know, they're just fun times, so when I do look back, I realize, yeah, a lot of that family time was meaningful, I don't think, a lot of my school memories weren't very meaningful, I think some were, some of my friends were meaningful, but I think, I mean, I was just very, I was a very different person in high school, and middle school too, and elementary school, I was just a very different person in general, and I think during those times, you know, it's just hard to have really meaningful memories, at least for me it was, there were still some, but I think it was especially hard in high school, because I didn't, I didn't really have too many friends, and so I think one of the biggest connections I've made with meaningful experiences is that they're usually, they usually involve other people, whether it be family, friends, whatever, usually involve other people, so in high school, I didn't find it very meaningful, because I didn't have a lot of friends, so I think, to sum all that up, I think, looking back at my childhood, there were a lot of meaningful memories made with, a lot of family memories, a lot of friends, in like middle school and stuff, not so much high school, but I think that whole process of growing up and maturing, becoming more aware, I think that process in itself, I think that's pretty meaningful and powerful. Yeah, well, thanks for sharing again, like, I appreciate your perspective on the process of growth as meaningful, like there's good and bad that comes with it, but in the end, it's part of God's design, thus it is meaningful. Of course, there are some points in our lives which we view as more meaningful than others, I think that's, I think that's the case for most people, not everybody, I agree with what you said as well, like time with people leads to meaningful experiences, and it definitely can feel painful if you're going into a school environment, or even post-school environment, if you feel isolated, and you're not surrounded by people that you consider friends, or people you can trust, it really makes you wonder a bit, and there is a spectrum of circumstances for things you can control and not control in that aspect, but it is a real issue, and it does affect people even now, so it's a sobering fact, but it's also a reminder to us in our state and our roles that we can spread Christ's love to people, and thus give them meaning back into their lives, not because we ourselves are better than them, but because Christ has changed us, and because He loves us, and I was homeschooled in middle school, so as an only child, you really don't get to see people, or sorry, like kids your same age, without exoneration from your parents, or like without parents' approval, right, so like, yes, Christian friends, sure, that's good and fine and dandy, but really my memories of that growing up just aren't the strongest, like I went to my first non-homeschooling thing in high school, and I understand the justifications for homeschooling, I'm not saying whether that was a good or a bad decision, I'm just saying one of the natural consequences of being in a more isolated environment with family is you don't make as many memories outside the house, because you're in the house almost all the time, and I guess as well as like something that came to mind throughout that, it's like a lot of times, when we really think about it, we're working to try to achieve something, but what is that exactly? In a sense, like it's more of a rhetorical question, because you may say, oh, I want to start a family, you know, like raise kids, and just live this American dream, or live this life that we're told, or that we tend to view as a successful life, but a lot of times, what we end up doing is we, in a quote-unquote successful scenario, is we end up with more money in our pockets, but more isolation overall. I don't know if you know your neighbors by name, like I'll admit, I don't know my neighbors even by name. No, it's very good, it's like it's it's good to make those connections and get to know people around you. It's like if you don't have the proper perspective, then what happens is you can become more isolated. You have to make a more of an effort to reach out, but if you are successful, how it can end up for you is you can just be comfortable, and you don't have to take additional risks, you don't have to try to reach out, people connect with them. You can be self-sufficient, you can survive on your own, and you can be viewed as successful by the world, but what happens is that in that mindset, it's easy to fall into a comfortable, falsely content experience and lifestyle. Yeah, I think there's a lot of meaning behind just being uncomfortable, or doing things that are uncomfortable, and yeah, just, I mean, sharing the love of Christ with people, that can be uncomfortable sometimes, doing outreach, but those experiences, like when I think back to my life, when people have shared Christ with me, I've shared Christ with other people, those have been some of the most meaningful experiences, seriously. There, I want to share a story about a meaningful experience I had, where I was working at Sprouts, and I worked in the deli department, and I was feeling very sad that day, for a lot of different reasons, but I remember I was the only one working that day, it was close to the, close to closing, and we had a customer come up, I had a customer come up, and her name was Nancy, and she was the sweetest lady, she returned a lot, she was known in Sprouts very well, and so she came up, and I was like, oh, hey, Nancy, and I think she could tell I was feeling kind of sad, because I was acting a little bit different, but, you know, I took her order, I made her a sandwich, I gave it to her, and she's like, oh, Logan, by the way, I have something in my car for you, I'm going to go get it real quick, so she runs to her car, comes back out, and she brings me a card, and she says, you know, last week was, the week before, it was Employee Appreciation Week, and she knew that, and so she wrote me a card for Employee Appreciation Week, and so she handed it to me, she walked away, and so I brought the card back behind the deli counter, and I opened it, and I read, she wrote a little note, it was very sweet, and then she had like 10 bucks in it, and I remember reading it, and opening it, and just, I literally just started crying in Sprouts, like, behind the deli counter, I just started crying, because that, that was just super meaningful, because she didn't really, I don't think she really knew what was going on, obviously she didn't know what was going on in my life at that point, but just that little act of, you know, like, I see you, she didn't just view, she didn't just come to the counter and talk, but she saw me in that moment, and she, you know, was very thoughtful, wrote the note, and gave it to me that day, that was just really meaningful, because I was in a place where, you know, things were just, I was just feeling sad, and things were kind of going on in my life at that point, and she gave me that letter, and I was just overwhelmed, and so just that act of, you know, I bet that was kind of uncomfortable for her too, maybe it wasn't, but I think if I were to adapt for someone else, it might just be a little uncomfortable, maybe just a little bit, but I think that's what God wants us to do, he wants us to push past our own fear, push past our own doubt or uncertainty, and then just go into circumstances or situations with boldness, and with courage, I think that's what God wants from us, and through that, that moment becomes meaningful, and that experience becomes meaningful, but it's not until we push past our doubts, or our worries, or insecurities, whatever they may be, that God takes that, and really just brings light to a really meaningful, and just a really cool interaction, so that's just something, that's a story I was thinking of, where I personally saw, and it was a small thing too, just a card and a letter, right, and ten bucks, but that experience was meaningful, because I was in a place where I just wasn't feeling very good, and she just really encouraged me that day, and it meant a lot, and it's a time where I look back, and when I was thinking about our podcast, that's one of the first stories that came to mind, it was just a meaningful, just a small gesture of meaningfulness, and it was really sweet, so pretty, it was a pretty impactful story. Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing. I know you said that was a seemingly little thing to do, to give ten dollars and a card, but sometimes the things we view as doing something little, or bare minimum, quote-unquote, some of those things we do can actually be very powerful, but we, or at least myself, what I can fail to realize sometimes, or even a lot of the times, is that I don't understand fully what someone else is going through. People can put up an appearance and say that everything's okay, but you never know when someone's going through personal battles or struggles that they are hiding well, and you don't realize the impact these little things can have on somebody, which is why it's important that we view things with this proper perspective of meaningfulness, because that is contagious. Our attitude towards life can spread towards others. You can become very similar to those you keep company with, and I think the reverse can be true as well. You can influence those around you with your outlook in life. I think as well, thinking on personal experiences, a lot of them that stand out resulted because of some unplanned, or I guess like discomfort, I guess, like something that doesn't go according to script, or like my comfort zone, because I can plot out a day in my head, like my perfect day, quote-unquote, where everything goes right, I do perfectly well in work, I can meet up with somebody, it's just a perfect day, but I remember one of the thoughts I had during the COVID lockdown in 2020, one of the things I really missed was something small, quote-unquote. What I missed was the so-called random interactions I had walking around campus, meeting up with people, catching up with them. You can't plan it, because you may not talk to them for a while, you may not even have their phone number or whatnot, but you bump into them, you say, oh hey, so how's it going, and you never know sometimes when you bump into somebody. You can talk to someone, you can impact their lives, they can impact your life, you can reconnect with them even. Those things I miss, because during that time you were just staying in, and well, those moments don't happen. Those moments where you just stay on script becomes the norm. So again, it's those little things that are important. I think they do matter a lot. And during the COVID lockdown, I mean, obviously, a lot of us were closed up in our house, and we weren't able to get out, but then when we did get out, it made socializing and talking with people, which was something that before is just a normal thing, but after the COVID lockdown, it made a conversation with a stranger, a conversation with a friend, so much more meaningful. That kind of makes me think, man, when you take away something that maybe is like meaningful in your life now, take it away, you realize how meaningful it really was, right? And so with the COVID lockdown, we couldn't talk to a lot of people, unless if you were stuck with your family in your house or friends or whatever. Then you get out and you get to socialize, go back on campus, talk to students, friends, and then you realize, wow, I missed this. And you realize that these conversations and these little interactions are just saying, hey, how's it going to your friend? Those are meaningful and powerful moments, and it's so small, but then I think when we look at the big picture as Christians, that we are going out to serve the Lord, we're here to serve Jesus, and we're just here to love people too. When we remember the big picture, it puts so much more emphasis and importance on the small things. So remembering the big picture makes the small moments, where a lot of people look at it, it might just seem basic. We're just talking to people, we're just asking how they're doing, we're having these conversations. It might seem small and simple, but when you have the big picture in mind, it's like, wait a minute, this isn't just a small thing. This is powerful. This is something that moves people, that makes people feel seen and connected, and that's something that God wants from, I think, each of us. So even though it's small, think of the big picture, and that'll make those small things even bigger. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I agree. Well said. Again, if we put things in proper perspective, then it changes our worldview. It changes our lives for the better. I really appreciated what you said just a little while back, where how do you judge how important something really is to you? If you lose it, what do you do? I think a lot of times, and yeah, you brought up a ray, which is a very, very interesting point. In fact, I think if to the listeners who are listening to this, if there's one thing, one key takeaway I would recommend is what Logan just said. It's if how you judge something as important, if you lose it, how does it impact you? There's an old phrase that says you don't know how good you have it until it's gone, and a lot of times you can view things as, oh, I really think this is meaningful. I really have fun doing whatever, but take it away. What you lose at most is just a bit of comfort, that was it really meaningful to you? I mean, maybe it felt meaningful to you, but was it actually beneficial to you? If it's not beneficial to you, even if you viewed it as meaningful to begin with, then perhaps you're missing something that you actually should be pouring your effort to. As I say this, I feel like I'm talking to myself as well. It's like, man, it's like I enjoy watching YouTube videos. It's like relaxing and all that, but it's like if I lost YouTube and I could never watch a YouTube video again, sure, that would be bad in case I need to look up repair videos, educational videos, that sub-step, sure, but outside of that small exception bubble, the majority of entertainment things that I watch, if I cut it out of my life, would I really be missing out on that much? No, I wouldn't be. Of course, it's the habits as well. It's like you build them up. I'm not saying don't have fun. Definitely enjoy your life, but things in moderation, not accessions or excessiveness, I should say. That is all part of the perspective picture that we have. Viewing things in a different light, losing things, and then regaining them back helps us. I know some people in the build-up to Easter, like we just recently passed Easter 2023, but people do something that's called Lent, which is a 40-day sacrifice. I honestly haven't done that, I don't think ever, or at least not recently, but I've heard some people, what they give up is like YouTube videos, or they give up like eating meat, or they give up something, sugar, or something that they really liked doing, but they realized they could cut off from their life. They could purge it at least for 40 days. Maybe it's impossible, or impossible is not what I should actually use in this context. It's very unlikely that you could just totally cut off one of those things permanently, but it's a good perspective reminder and refresh of what is most important. If we lose our intimacy with God by neglecting to read His Word and not praying, not going to church, what we miss out on is irreplaceable. That is one of the things that is essential, so it's just the perspective really, I guess it challenges me because now I have to think of, wow, okay, it's like, how am I prioritizing things, and how am I actually viewing things properly in the specific context of what is meaningful and what isn't at the end of the day? I think if everything is meaningful, or I should say everything in a sense of like literally everything has the same meaning, then you cannot distinguish what actually is more important. I think if there are things that are not meaningful, then there are things that we do call meaningful that are indeed more valuable. I think it's like a tough dilemma sometimes when we're stuck in the motions and just stuck in doing the same things over and over again, but as you mentioned several minutes back, zoom out, you don't know what you're missing. You know, that makes me think of the meaningfulness behind Jesus and His resurrection, and His death and resurrection, and we're talking about losing something, right? We lost Jesus, you know, like Jesus died, we lost that. The Savior of the world, the King of the universe, the Son of God died, we lost it, right? But then He came back. I think the fact that Jesus died and then resurrected three days later, I think that is just a picture of how meaningful a relationship with Jesus is, because He came back and then He rose up to heaven again, and through that, and then getting His Spirit later, I think that whole journey, the whole process of having Him die and then resurrect, that is meaningful in itself, and it makes me think of, you know, like you're saying about Lent, like losing something on Lent for the glory of God, it oftentimes, it's hard to lose something in the short term, it's hard, but then over time, I think we start realizing that we don't actually need some of these things that we are losing, like social media, I think is a big one, and kind of going off from there, I deleted a lot of my social media after high school, and when I first deleted it, I was like, dang, how am I going to stay in touch with my friends? How am I going to keep in communication? It all worked out, okay? Like, literally, I realized that giving it up is actually not something that brought a lot of meaning to my life, but I think that's good, what you're saying, Matt, too, is if you want to find out if something is meaningful, like, I don't know, try dropping it for a little while, like social media, phone, whatever it may be, I can't think of other examples, but let it go for a little bit, and then look back at your life and see, do you feel like your life is still meaningful? And usually, if you don't have social media, your life is still going to be meaningful, and you're going to realize that you don't actually need it, or you don't necessarily need a lot of apps on your phone, but it also frees up the opportunity to engage in more meaningful conversations and interactions. I think our phones and social media blockade a lot of that and fabricate a lot of that, and I think giving up something like that is good, and it helps see the things that are more meaningful. So maybe, I'm curious as to this, too, does social media and do our phones and technology kind of influence our idea of something that's meaningful? Because I think we look at social media, and I think it guides our thinking as to what should be meaningful. We might scroll on these, I don't know, entrepreneurs or these business tycoons and see, oh, this is how they're living their life, that's what I should think of as meaningful. That's the idea of something that's meaningful. Do you think that should start thinking? If we were to delete all that, wouldn't we be able to actually see what is meaningful in life, you know? So I guess my question is, do you see social media as being a big factor in shaping how we view meaningfulness and what is meaningful in our life? I think if social media did not shape how we viewed meaning in life, we wouldn't be talking about it because it would be irrelevant in our lives. I think certainly social media has a profound impact on how we view things as meaningful. This does not mean that just because social media says it's meaningful means it's not, or vice versa. However, and this could be, I don't want to get too much into the tangents here, but social media, the dangers of it, if the person or entity that controls the algorithm controls what you see, if you want to find something on social media, you can find it, but it may take more work. You may have to search something up, for example. You may have to look it up or scroll to find it, whatever. But the way the algorithm works, something is naturally brought up to the top, and you see it first, and your eyes catch on to the headline, and you see the stunning words, and the shock fills you of whatever you see, and you react to it accordingly, and thus the algorithm has worked. You have felt something. Again, I said those words vaguely. It could just be, oh, like cute puppies or like something like innocent or harmless. That is the basic example of an algorithm working. But of course, you can go from there, and I won't dive too much into that, but you can see how social media impacts people. It's a tool that can be used for good or evil, and as Christians, we have to be very mindful that what we see in the Holy Scriptures must triumph over the words of the media or the social media. If we consume, like for example, if we just visualize, like we have a certain amount of time. If we read 15 minutes of the Bible and scroll social media for two hours, what are we consuming? We're consuming what social media is telling us, and suddenly our beliefs start to shift towards whatever the algorithm points us to, or in case we say, oh, I'm too strong-willed for that. I'm not going to fall for an algorithm. It shifts to what your friends are telling you to agree with or what the common popular consensus is for any issue within your social circle. It may not have to be a popular opinion nationwide, but if it's in your close-knit circle, then you're more likely to believe it than not, and if you don't believe it, you would have found someone else with a group of people that share your like-minded values, and that's just how humans operate, and there's nothing necessarily wrong with finding like-minded people, but we have to keep that in check with the Scriptures, with believers in Christ. You have to make sure that what we are consuming will actually be beneficial and meaningful, not just something that sounds beneficial and sounds scriptural, sounds like a Bible verse you may have heard, but it's actually just a misquote. If I had to think of one off the top of my head, people saying that money is the root of all evil, well, no, it's not. You can spend money for very good things in the world. What makes it evil, though, is when you love money and you put that above God, because the full verse says that the love of money is the root of all evil, because if you love money and place that above God, then that tool of money will be spent for your own selfish desires and whatever other means that you want to spend it on, and it's not exactly one-to-one, but like with social media, it's like how you spend your time on this, how you use the tool influences whether you do it for good or evil. The sad thing that we see in this generation, a unique problem that has not existed in any other time period in human history, is the following paradox. In this modern time, we are the most connected generation technology-wise. Never before in human history have people been able to contact anybody or virtually anybody in the entire world, heck, maybe even out of this world, but anybody in the world at the push of a button on a handheld device. If we think about that, wow, how meaningful can that possibly be? You could reach out to your family member, to a friend, heck, you could even talk to a stranger if you wanted to. I wouldn't recommend that, but you could. You could do whatever you want in communication, essentially, instantly. I know this is a tangent. I don't think that's going to last forever. That's just my personal thought, but regardless of whether that happens or not, despite that fact, we see some studies which suggest that this generation, the same generation with the technology, is one of the, if not the most, lonely generations. Some studies may say it's not the most lonely, maybe it only appears lonely, but semantics aside, it's an undeniable fact that people feel lonely despite having the technology. If you jump back 150 years or 200 years, you have telegrams or whatnot, even if you wanted to reach out to people across the world, you had to write a letter, take weeks, months, maybe it never arrived. You would not have that capability. It's a scary thought to me as well, because we have so much right now in terms of technology and stuff, but to whom much is given, much more will be required of them. What we have now is an abundance of resources and material that people in the past, we've only dreamt about having, condemned their fathom it, yet here we are, we have it, and yet we live our lives in a sense where it just becomes passive, where we don't find meaning in things, despite having all these resources that we just take for granted. We're spoiled. It's crazy. It's heartbreaking when we see that people feel lonely, and yet we look at our lives and we see, jumping back a little earlier, we can cut off things in our lives when we choose not to, and thus as well, we just reinforce the same cycle of complacency, and we accept the circumstances around us passively, and let the circumstances conform us, instead of letting ourselves, through the light of the gospel, shine that light into the world. Yeah, I've got an interesting idea. You were talking about social media, and you mentioned letters. Thinking about that, is it more meaningful to send a text message, or is it more meaningful to write a letter? That's kind of one of those questions where obviously the answer is to write a letter to someone, but why? Why is it more meaningful to write a letter than to send a text message? What do you think? That's a good question. Unfortunately, I don't tend to write letters, I guess, to friends and stuff. But I agree, definitely, that if I got a letter in the mail, and I read it from someone, and I see what they wrote, I definitely treat that as more meaningful because of a couple things. I guess one is time invested. This is not to bash texting or modern communication, but if you text somebody, it can take seconds. I have to go, there, done. But writing a letter, it feels more personal in a sense. You're not reading just some letters on the digital screen, you're reading someone's handwriting. They're taking the time to put in their writing into this letter. We can read it, and we can see that, wow, they took the time to pay for the postage, they took the time to send it. So, the letter, a lot of personal time you invest into it, the handwriting and all that, it feels more personalized. And say, like, if you're being a friend or in whatever relationship with somebody, and you want to communicate solely by letter, what you do, you respond back to the letter, you write back to them, and thus you reciprocate. If someone just wrote to you letters one-way street, and you received the letter, you just didn't respond back to it, you never read it, you never looked at it, then, which is, you really wouldn't say that you actually know that person well, because they're just writing them to you. You're like, yeah, cool, it's a one-way thing. But then I feel convicted when I remember that the scriptures are God's love letter to us. He writes his words on the documents, of course, translated through the years and whatnot, but it's still God's letters to us. Heck, there's literal letters to the early church, as you see in the New Testament, but regardless, if we don't take the time to read the word, then we're letting God's letters to us collect dust. God will never leave us nor forsake us. He holds up his end of the bargain. We don't have to worry about that, but do we take the time and actually be in a relationship with him by reading his words to us? And even if we do, and this is where I feel the conviction, it's like, how much of proportion is that compared to anything else? All the excuses we can give to make other things more meaningful than reading the words of God to us, it's just something to think about. Absolutely, yeah. And thinking back to that example of the letter and the text message, it really does, meaningful things, I think, do become more meaningful when they are, when you can see an effort was laid, when you can see there was time put into it, and I think both of those things are required for a letter. Text messages, like you're saying, boom, send a quick text, doesn't take a lot of time. You can automate texts. You can, oh my gosh, you can. I've heard people say that. I just sent you an automated, no, they didn't say that. And with AI, you can just have it write an email for you and just, boom, send that. So it's so automated. Oh, chat GPT. Chat GPT, yeah. But with letters, you take the time to write it, you make the effort to write it, and it doesn't even necessarily have to be something really amazing or groundbreaking, but the fact that you went and you spent time making it, you took an effort in it, and you personalized it, right, for that other person, whoever you're sending it to, that's special. And I think that process in doing all that for somebody, whoever you're sending a letter to, is meaningful in itself, rather than just a text message that takes two seconds to send. And I think you can apply that to so many different things, too, whether you're giving a gift to someone, whether you're... Yeah, we can give different quality gifts. It's like how high the quality is depends on factors, as you said, how much time invested into the gift we give, the quality of the actual gift that we give to somebody, the thoughtfulness of even considering them for a gift in the first place. All these things add up and build up. And the better you know somebody, the more valuable a gift is. And a gift doesn't have to be something wrapped in a bubble. It doesn't have to be like, oh, happy birthday, here's your gift. Well, that's all great and fine and dandy. It's like you give your gift of time to people that you care about. You give your gift of support to people when they're going through terrible times or bad times or times that they wish for better, you can give that as a gift to them. It's not something you wrap up again, but it's something that people can appreciate. Like people at my church talk a lot about love languages, which is basically what people view as most valuable to them. And so some people's gift of time. And if people don't have the same compatibility with the love languages, people can disinterpret someone's gift. They're like, oh, I don't really care about this. Like don't care about the words, don't care about the time. Like, I just want the words. I just want the time. I just want something else. You might give a gift that's meaningful to you and your idea, but then that person interprets and gets it and they're like, oh, this isn't super meaningful because my love language is something different. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, exactly. And I know we are getting close to running out of time today, but I did mention a little bit earlier, jumping back, I was going to discuss the serenity prayer. So jolting back a little bit to that, the serenity prayer, have you heard of it before, by the way? I have, yeah. So basically it's just to understand perspective. That's what the serenity prayer is about, to realize that we need to serve Him from God, to understand there are things we can control, things we cannot control. Praying that God delivers the things we cannot and then doing the most we can through the empowerment of God for the things that we can. And I see you're looking it up as well, which is good. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. And I wanted to touch on one more thing quickly that things that are meaningful, we talked about putting time into writing things and putting time into our efforts. Why is time so meaningful? Because it is so limited and because it is fleeting. With other things in life, if you picked up the computer that is recording this podcast and you chucked it against the wall and you broke it, of course I wouldn't be the happiest person in the world because we'd lose the recording, but a computer can be replaced. I can buy a new computer. I can earn money at a job to buy the computer. That can all be replaced. What cannot be replaced, though, is the time. We've lost this hour. We would have lost this hour of conversation for this podcast. I would have lost the time spent for memories stored on the laptop that I didn't back up. Those essentials are lost, irrecoverable. So things that can be lost or cannot be gained back, such as time, add an extra store of meaning and dimension to them when you choose to invest what cannot be regained into someone or something. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, I mean there's so many things that can easily be replaced, but yeah, there's only one thing that can't be replaced and that's time. So I think going back to that conversation about gifts, you know, we receive a gift from someone and it's usually more meaningful if there's been a lot of time spent on it, if it's personal for that other person that's receiving the gift, right? So I think, yeah, time is the biggest thing that's involved with meaningfulness and yeah, I think you got it right on the head right there. Yeah, I can't think of anything else to say. Well, Logan, I want to thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to be on this podcast. No, I really do appreciate it though. It's like, it is good to slow down a bit and really think about these things. Again, in this time and age, social media, whatever, it's all about the now and the next instance and you get caught up in all that and we talked about zooming out because everything's so zoomed in in this cultural context and so taking the time, having peace, realizing that, okay, well, there are things that we wish were better but we know that, well, God will make things right in the end and we know that we see things in the heat of the moment but God sees things in all times. Understanding we are forgetful people and we have such limited power, we're so weak in many regards but we know that God strengthens us even in our weaknesses and we know that even though we can make mistakes, even though we may have wasted time on things, we still know that God is with us and he will still give us these meaningful experiences for his glory and because he loves us and it's just a very comforting fact at the end of the day. So, I guess before we wrap things up, is there any last final words, comments, thoughts, questions that you have? Well, I think when we're talking about time, one last thing I'll say, and we talked a lot about the big picture too, understanding our purpose and our why with God on the earth. I think putting into perspective time, our time is limited on this earth, you know, and I think that puts into perspective the meaningfulness by the way we live our lives every day, right, and we know the big picture, we know that God is with us and we're here to serve his people and to love and honor other people but it's one of those things where it's like, yeah, when you look at that, it motivates you every day because time is limited, you never know when death is going to come and with that in mind, let's go out and live a meaningful life and I think that requires sometimes for us to come out of the now and to reflect on the things that God has blessed our lives with, reflect on the goodness of God and that pushes us and encourages us to continue living that out through God. So, I think the only last thing I would say is that, you know, life is, time is fleeting, every second we spend, I mean, it's another second gone obviously and but through that, remembering God's purpose, remembering the big picture and then continuing to walk, trust and lean on him in everything and just recognize that living life, whatever that may look like now, whatever season you may be in right now, life is meaningful. The fact that we get to wake up in the morning, that's meaningful and we're talking about, you know, the small things in life can mean a lot. I think just having the breath, having breath in our lungs, the ability to wake up in the morning to eat food, whatever that is, the small things, that's powerful and so, I think to live out of gratitude would be to recognize the meaningful things in life and the things that bring a lot of value and as Christians, sometimes it's the small things. I mean, there's a lot of big things too, obviously, but no matter what it is, I think God gives us a lot of meaning behind just living life with him. So, I think as time is going on, recognize that every day is going to have opportunities to look back and reflect on God's meaningfulness and his truth and so, I would just, that's just what I want to end on right there. Yeah, well said man, well said and I guess not too much more to add on my part, but yes, time is meaningful. Enjoy God's blessings, but also realize that perspective is important. You don't know when God is going to remove things out of your life and put new things in, so you don't want to take for granted what you have now. Instead, we must push forward and realize God's opportunities and blessings he gives to us are his ways of not only showing his love, but fulfilling his will on this earth to spread his gospel to all people and so, when we live with this meaningful mindset in mind, we know that throughout the good and the bad that lies ahead, we can continue to trust in him always and thus, truly, we can live meaningful lives. Well said. Yeah, well again, thank you so much for coming and thank you for having me. Yeah, no problem. Thank you everybody for listening and hope you all have a great day and we'll see you next time.