From Futility to Fulfillment in Christ
By Elizabeth Prata
SYNOPSIS
A reflection on society’s moral and spiritual decline, this piece laments humanity’s increasing futility—anger, emptiness, and loss of meaning apart from God. Drawing on Scripture, it contrasts worldly pursuits and hollow creativity with the only true fulfillment found in Jesus, who alone gives purpose and life.
I was talking with someone the other day and we were shaking our heads at the state of the world, children, how people think (or don’t think) these days and more.
We see the decline locally and globally. The decline is in everything- emotional regulation, morals, accountability, common sense, etc. And thinking.
We see people with a hair trigger anger response when either something doesn’t go their way, or they receive an answer of no rather than their desire fulfilled. They resort to frustration and anger almost immediately. Emotions rule.
Romans 1:21-22a says – For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their reasonings, and their senseless hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools. [underline mine]
FUTILE: it means to render foolish, be morally wicked, and specially idolatrous.
The same sense of the word that is used in Romans 1:21; is also used in 1 Peter 1:18 and Ephesians 4:17
Ephesians 4:17; So I say this, and affirm in the Lord, that you are to no longer walk just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their minds,
1 Peter 1:18, knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers,
It means vain, pointless, empty, meaningless.
So much of art exists because it is a search for meaning. Poetry, essays, movies, paintings, all a search for some sort of expression that will resolve the non-saved person’s endless quest to the answer of the question ‘what is the meaning of life?’ The creatives’ search, however, is futile.
TV/art/movie/literary critics spend much time and ink pondering the ‘truths’ brought out in their discussions of the art they’re reviewing. It’s all futile. They do not know their thoughts and conjectures and philosophies are futile, empty, and meaningless. Futile.
They rejected His statutes and His covenant which He made with their fathers, and His warnings which He gave them. And they followed idols and became empty, and followed the nations that surrounded them, about which the LORD had commanded them not to do as they did. (2 Kings 17:15).
This is what the LORD says: “What injustice did your fathers find in Me, That they went far from Me, And walked after emptiness and became empty? (Jeremiah 2:5).
Worse, they do not know their entire lives are empty. They think that having a fleshly goal and reaching it will fill them. They think that busy-ness will fill them. They think that rising in the career levels will fill them. They think that children will fill them. But not even that blessing will fill them. Life is empty unless Jesus is at the center of it. His Light radiates out through the person from within and is the center pivot upon which the person revolves. We worship Him, create for Him with Him in mind, love others because of Him. He gives meaning to life. He IS life. Apart from Him we can do nothing. (cf John 15:5).
Let us make sure our days are not striving after wind, but satisfied in Jesus. Let us not walk after emptiness, but fill ourselves with the meat of the word.
