So... I was thinking about wisdom and Ecclesiastes and considering the meaning of our day to day actions.

There was a time when I didn't wonder why I was alive. Sometime after that, I realized that actions should have purpose, but that most actions of myself and the people around me lacked apparent purpose. Furthermore, I saw that the material things I considered to be valuable were eternally worthless.

For a long time I saw life as inherently meaningless, and full of meaningless things and meaningless actions. A recent XKCD comic eloquently put it "A human is a system for converting dust billions of years ago into dust billions of years from now via a roundabout process which involves checking email a lot."

However, no matter how much I break life and existence down into parts and facts which yield it no value, I could not escape my emotions. I'm not saying that the presence of my emotions proved my life to be any more or less valuable -- just that I had them and I couldn't get rid of them, no matter how valueless I made existence.

At first, the inescapable desire for happiness and the undeniable presence of pain taught me, in short, "It doesn't matter that it doesn't matter." That is, even if life is completely worthless, I will achieve happiness in the way I think is best, no matter what... right? Wrong. If life is completely worthless and I live under that paradigm, then pursuing happiness on my own will always be unfulfilling  because the happiness will always be temporary, and I'll just keep coming back to the question "Why does it matter if I am happy?".

Seeing little earthly answer to that question, I wondered at which happiness (without mention of God) is most long-lasting. After some consideration, I decided that happiness is most durable when it comes in a group (mutual happiness with friends or a loved one). Group happiness is achieved by providing some kind of good or service to the group without expecting return.

Now, combining a few of these points: All my stuff is eternally worthless; the best happiness comes from giving to the group. It seems to follow that I would make my goal to just give all my stuff away.

But we know that isn't the answer. First of all, if I gave away all my stuff, I'd have nothing left to give, and I'd end up unhappy again. Second of all, this only attempts to solve the problem of "purpose", which wasn't even the problem I was trying to solve. The problem I was aiming for was that there didn't seem to be "value" in life.

All this time I knew the answer, but I didn't reach out and touch it. God gives us value and purpose. He loves us, and he give us an infinite stash to give away. God even gives us a means to happiness *achievable on earth*, which never runs dry and always satisfies. Stephen in Acts found it. That happiness stems exactly from the realization that nothing matters. It turns meaninglessness into value. It says, "these things on earth came from dust, and will return to dust, but I have a Father in heaven who loves me." and it even goes so far as to say "Here, take my valuable possessions and please be blessed by them. I don't need them, because I have happiness endlessly."

"When he had said this, he fell asleep."