When This Life Seems Meaningless…

God’s Word speaks thoroughly and abundantly into every season of the heart. As we study His Word, we learn that within its pages are found the ultimate source of comfort and peace for the sufferer. In this series, we will seek to carefully and compassionately apply these ancient, scriptural truths to feelings and experiences that are common in grief.

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Future glory, seeing my Lord Jesus by sight alongside of my heavenly family all while without sin, is my hope—and that is the reality that made sense to me after my stillborn daughter flew ahead. But that future hope was tested when I needed to invest again in this life after earthly loss. I knew how my Christ-bought hope informed my future, but I could not at all times sense how it was to inform my present. At times, I felt aimless, like the span of days between now and glorification lacked in meaning.

The apostle Paul writes that all of creation is groaning (Romans 8:22). Its exhales are signs. And its inhales course as through pounding injury. This belabored status began the moment of human sin, and extends to the present moment. Isaiah 24:4-8 gives further description: 

The earth mourns and withers;
the world languishes and withers; 
the highest people of the earth languish.
The earth lies defiled
under its inhabitants;
for they have transgressed the laws,
violated the statutes,
broken the everlasting covenant.
Therefore a curse devours the earth,
and its inhabitants suffer for their guilt;
therefore the inhabitants of the earth are scorched,
and few men are left.
The wine mourns,
the vine languishes,
all the merry-hearted sigh.
The mirth of the tambourines is stilled,
the noise of the jubilant has ceased,
the mirth of the lyre is stilled. 

None are exempt from the effects of a groaning earth. And the originating cause of the groaning is certain—men are lawbreakers who transgress God’s commandments (see Genesis 3:17-19). The earth was man’s to subdue as God’s holy representatives. But when man fell, that under his care was cursed.

Recognizing that origin for suffering on a grand scale enabled me to be free from assuming that any particular sins in my life caused my daughter to be stillborn (John 9:3). I suffer because I am part of a fallen world. 

The earth’s groans now mirror to me how I feel under the weight of my sins, and my hope corresponds to the lifting of those sins. As we who believe become more like Christ, putting sins to death and living by the Spirit, we start to grasp more and more of future glory. We see signs of our inner renewal, day by day, and rejoice in more of the Lord and the things of the Lord.

But the earth itself? Though its sighs anticipate a renewal, it has not yet been made new in any sense.

We remain here—and, though saved by the heaven-sent One, we still relate to these descriptors from Isaiah 24:4-8: languish, wither, mourn, sigh, and stilled. Disjointed from this world because of what we are being made into by Christ, our present experience remains set in this Isaiah 24:4-8 surrounding.

This is a channel of disconnect in our lives. And through it, idleness and ambivalence toward this life might find way to seep within us.

But instead, see how the Lord places His hands in this gap for us, such that—believing His truth—apathy need not be permitted. He reaches toward us with love so that we can be assured with the psalmist, 

The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me;
your steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever.
Do not forsake the work of your hands. (Psalm 138:8)

God looks upon this world that groans of sin and sin’s effects. When His glance arrives upon us who believe, He sees what He has started in transforming sinners into the likeness of Christ by the Spirit. And He notes that for all the good in us, His is the glory—He gets the credit. Augustine wrote: 

Behold in me Thy Work, not mine: for mine if Thou seest, Thou condemnest; Thine, if Thou seest, Thou crownest. For whatever good works there be of mine, from Thee are they to me; and so they are more Thine than mine. Therefore whether in regard that we are men, or in regard that we have been changed and justified from our iniquity, Lord, “despise not Thou the works of Thine own hands.”[1]

Hope will be fulfilled after this life, yes, but hope only starts and increases in the present. And this kind of hope involves searching for how God might be glorified after this life by what happens in it today.

There are those who say a person can be too heavenly minded for earthly good. And there are others who rebuff—that only by focusing on heaven can we be of any earthly good. Both sentiments are accurate to my experience. 

Thinking of glory tells me how to value God and His will above this world. And then, remembering that God is interested in the happenings of this day keeps me from building idleness or apathy about life here. I need both—future-looking hope of God’s glory by sight and earth-treading hope of God’s glory mounting through this day by who I am becoming in Christ alone.

The same truth that causes my disconnect from this world—who I am becoming in Christ—also stirs my hope when I remember who is behind my becoming and whose glory is the purpose of it.

Amidst a sin-rotted world because of which we languish and in which we are also fighting our own sins, God does not abandon the glory for Himself that He is bringing in a variety of ways from our lives. He is not forsaking the work of His hands. And if He is here to do that right now, then how can I—how can we—forsake these present days and this good work either? 

Sighing, we are not forsaken. 
His hands here are working, 
Glory to awaken.

¹Philip Schaff, Ed., Saint Augustin: Expositions on the Book of Psalms, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, First Series. (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1888), 635.

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Lianna (@liannadavis) is wed to Tyler and mom of two dear daughters. She is author of Made for a Different Land: Eternal Hope for Baby Loss(Hope Mommies, 2019). More of her writing can be found at her website.

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