Why Faith Can Feel Pointless Even When You’re Doing Everything Right

The quiet confusion that turns devotion into discouragement

For some, living the Christian life can feel like the ancient story of Sisyphus’s boulder. Remember that tale? Let me recap

Sisyphus was a clever but arrogant human king in the ancient Greek myths. He angered many Greek gods to the point where Zeus, the king of the gods, punished him to an eternity of rolling a boulder to the top of a mountain. However, once at the top, the boulder would slip and roll back down to the bottom. Sisyphus would then attempt again to roll the boulder back up to the top of the mountain, only to have it roll down again. This happens with every attempt.

Perhaps you feel that way when it comes to your Christian disciplines. You read, pray, attend church, hang out with believers who hold you accountable, but the purpose and meaning of these things are the proverbial boulder. You feel your efforts in Christian growth are meaningless. Always going up the same mountain and finding yourself watching your efforts falter down the hill with no end in sight, and your life none the better for it.

Many Christians feel exhausted because we approach it thinking that the Christian life of discipline will be validated through some kind of payoff, experience, or revelation.

Certainly not exhaustion, numbness, and suffering.

We can be tempted to feel “What’s the point?”

Unlike Sisyphus, Paul reminds us that within Christ, efforts in the Lord are redeemed-that is, they are rescued from the vain absurdity of repetitive behavior and hold the values of eternal meaning, purpose, and fulfillment.

“Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” 1 Cor 15:58

Paul knew that Psalm 127 is the cornerstone of truth he is basing his own encouragement to the Corinthians on it.

Unless the Lord builds the house,
those who build it labor in vain.
Unless the Lord watches over the city,
the watchman stays awake in vain.
2 It is in vain that you rise up early
and go late to rest,
eating the bread of anxious toil;
for he gives to his beloved sleep.

With this in mind, here’s how we can walk faithfully in the spiritual disciplines.

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Reframe the Reason Why We Do What We Do.

The gospel helps us with this. None of the spiritual disciplines I’ve listed above is to invoke or earn the favor of God. Prayer, Bible reading, and the rest of the disciplines are not designed to do that. It is only through Christ that we enjoy a reconciled, peaceful relationship with the Lord that grants us unmerited favor. The favor of a Heavenly Father that is eager to bless his children.

• The spiritual disciplines are for spiritual connection. Not spiritual approval.

• The means of grace* are for enjoying the favor of grace we have in Jesus

• When you are in Christ, you are accepted in Christ.

• No Condemnation.

• Nothing can separate you.

• Tasting and seeing that the Lord is good.

David Mathis says it well when he states:

… God has revealed certain channels through which he regularly pours out his favor. And we are foolish not take his word on them and build habits of spiritual life around them.”

I love his point of building “habits of spiritual life” around the channels.

That is not vainly laboring to push a boulder up a mountain. That is finding the fountains of enjoyment in God that every favored child of God has at their disposal.

So in the coming days, reframe the activities of your Christian life from the relational viewpoint. Rest and rejoice in the activity for its true purpose:

To enjoy Jesus’ presence and praise him for his favor.

When this striving stops and abiding is pursued over time, you will find the inspiration in looking to Jesus and “consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.” (see Hebrews 12:3)

But when we wait on the Lord, God promises,

“Yet those who hope in Yahweh
Will gain new power;
They will mount up with wings like eagles;
They will run and not get tired;
They will walk and not become weary. “

Isaiah 40:31 (LSB)