Happy Monday!
I welcome you to perhaps the strangest selection yet for word-of-the-week …
Sisyphus
Do you know the story of Sisyphus? He’s a character from Greek mythology who offended the Gods. As punishment, Sisyphus was ordered to push a rock up a hill. Each time he reached the top, the rock rolled to the bottom. He was condemned to an eternity of pushing the same rock up the same hill. Over and over, up and down—forever.
Does your life ever feel like that?
I heard an interesting reflection a few weeks ago. A speaker said he was feeling a bit burned out and offered this characterization of his life:
I feel like I go to work to get the money to buy the food to give me the strength to go to work …
Sisyphus was condemned to an eternity of struggle without meaning.
Seems to me that the work wasn’t the problem. The real punishment was a complete lack of any sense of purpose.
God didn’t promise you and me a life of ease and comfort. We’ve all got our own rocks to push up the hill, and it’s tempting to turn it into senseless routine.
God does promise that our work isn’t meaningless. He’ll never ask us to roll a useless rock up a pointless hill. Romans 8:28 assures us that He’s always working for good, even when we can’t see it.
Let’s not live a life of Sisyphus. Let’s not waste the incredible gift of each moment, the new beginning God gives us.
Let’s make sure our moments mean something, that they’re filled with relationship and service and grace. In the words of Mother Teresa:
We cannot all do great things. But we can all do small things with great love.
I’m trying to make sure my efforts this week mean something. How about you?
Have a great week!