Wanting more

I recently have gone through some significant life changes. I care less about the life change and more about my lack of living my life. What I mean is that for the better part of my life I have wanted to add depth to conversations and to the lives of those around me. I have wanted to be a person that causes others to think and feel deeply. Admittedly, I have wanted these things selfishly. Not to reveal the glory of God or to praise the name of Jesus or to relish in the work of the Holy Spirit in my life. I have wanted to be deep and thoughtful for deep and thoughtfulness sack. To look cool. 
But depth without substance is not depth. It is, in fact, shallow. The depth that the rest of the world totes - that I regarded as desirable - is a thin veil covering selfish ambition. We all want to be perceived as more than we are. 
But how can we be more than what we are? As much as I want one cookie to become a dozen cookies or two days of vacation to become four weeks of vacation it can not happen. At least in the case of vacation I can pretend that the two days really have become four weeks. I jeopardize any chance of steady employment by that illusion. Not to mention any connection with reality. 
No, there is no way to make myself something I am not. No amount of thinking I am something else, no amount of reading or running or traveling or eating will make me more than what I am. After all, what I am is not flesh and blood, but something deeper, more mysterious. I can discipline my body and become stronger, but that physical strength is not what I am. Not even my brain determines what or who I am. Even these attempts to alter myself physically, mentally or even "spiritually" only serve to increase my vapid attempts to add depth and meaning to myself. It does not add that substance that brings depth. Doing and seeing and experiencing are all meaningless without substance sustaining the movement. So where is this substance? Where can I find that sustaining substance?  
I must first understand that I am what is called a soul. But even knowing this does not answer the question of what do about adding depth to myself. How do I make one cookie, twelve? It has to be something outside of myself. It is something outside myself. More accurately, it is someone outside of myself. 

That person is Jesus, the Christ, son of the Most High God. I have looked at other teachers and philosophies and religions, all of which call me to make myself better. I am called to do more, perfect more, change more. It is all vanity. All of the things I am called to enhance me, perfect me, make me look better. 
Only Christ has the audacity to tell me that I am a dying man in need of a savior. He is the only one to tell me that all the checklists and do's and don't's won't heal me. He is the only one to tell me that I am shallow and there is nothing that I can do to add to my depth. Except for Him. 
He invites me to engage him in a relationship that changes my heart because I focus not on myself but Him who is so much bigger than I am. He beckons me to look outside to Him for my answers and trust when His answers do not seem to answer my needs. He adds substance that brings depth by the sheer force of His being. He is deep. It is because of Him that I can escape the vanity of this life.