I scooped up the dead kitten on the same day that I heard of a friend’s death.
As I carried it on the shovel, I felt a deep sense of futility. Why had the Lord allowed the kitten to even be born? What had my friend’s life amounted to after countless struggles with addiction and relational pain?
What is the point of it all?
The sun shining on brilliant autumnal leaves can’t cloak the fact that the earth revolves into the same maw of seasons, time eaten, rotted, and wasted. The beauty of spring is spun into the vibrance of summer only to be buried in the moulding leaf pile under snow.
“For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it…” Paul wrote to the Romans.
It’s a verse to make you mad when you’re wrestling with meaning and purpose.
Why would God subject us- and all of creation- to futility?
Why expose us to the pointlessness of hurtling toward death?
When I was in college, I took several upper level grammar classes, and I loved them. Most people’s eyes glaze over as soon as nouns and verbs are mentioned, thinking them futile, but I enjoyed every glimpse into the way language works.
In one class, we learned about transitive and intransitive verbs. A transitive verb doesn’t make sense until it takes a direct object. Let me show you what I mean:
If I said to you, The kitten enjoys… you would wonder what the kitten is enjoying. The action word “enjoys” is a transitive verb, and it won’t be complete until I tell you the noun, the direct object, that the kitten is enjoying. When I tell you, “The kitten enjoys warm milk,” you get a better sense of the full meaning of enjoys. It is a transitive verb that has taken a direct object and is no longer futile.
When God subjected us to futility after man sinned, He took Himself away as our direct object. He left us transitive without a direct object. He allowed all of creation to experience futility so that we would have to seek Him to find meaning and purpose.
I thought of transitive verbs while I carried the shovel with the dead kitten atop it. Our futility drives us to look for the Direct Object we lack.
The shovel buries the kitten.
My friend overcame difficulties.
She knew the Lord.
The Lord Himself completes our meaning.
Paul continued his thought to the Romans: “…but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.”
One day, we will be free from the heaviness of meaninglessness. Even now, when we take the Lord Jesus as our Savior, He brings meaning and purpose even in times of grief or bewilderment or despair.
He is the point, so that we no longer have to wrestle with pointlessness.
