Pointless

Have you ever found yourself doing something that felt pointless? Like disciplining your kids for the same thing for what seems like the millionth time. Like changing your eating habits or exercise routines and seeing no results. Like spending time with God and not feeling any different?

If you were a Jewish priest living in Old Testament times that’s what every day would have felt like. People sin, they bring a sacrifice, you handle it according to Moses’ instructions, no one feels better and then the pattern is repeated the next day. The author of Hebrews describes it as a pointless action “which can never take away sins.”

So why would God instruct Moses to initiate the sacrificial system in the first place? Fortunately, Hebrews tells us that the law was a shadow of the things to come (Hebrews 10:1), a reminder of our sin which only a sinless sacrifice could atone for once for all, namely Jesus. Generations of priests would have passed in ancient times without truly experiencing the significance of their rituals but we today understand them fully.

Sometimes life feels like that for me. I go through the motions of my day, wishing I could understand the larger purpose for what I’m doing. God calls me to obedience and I want to be faithful but I long for more; a deeper perspective of my calling, perhaps. It is at those times that I am drawn to Jesus, the “author and perfecter of my faith,” who even with a full understanding of what his Heavenly Father was asking him to do still agonized over it in the Garden. In Luke 22:42 we read, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.”

Maybe that’s it then. Maybe God is asking for my obedience even when I don’t understand it, when it feels pointless. That sounds like discipleship, even courage, to follow the Master’s voice into an unknown present and future. I know he has a plan that is for my good and for his glory. Maybe that’s enough.

God I long for your daily presence in my life. Help me to move forward with confidence even when I don’t understand why.

Throughout this day: Read Hebrews 9-10, focusing on the end of chapter 10 where Christians are encouraged to persevere in the faith because of what Christ has done on our behalf.