Last week I did a lot of repetitive, seemingly never-ending things.  It tested my positivity patience.  I was working on a few projects that required a lot of editing and restructuring.  With all of the redos and undos it would’ve been very easy for me to become cranky.   However, I kept my attitude at a relatively reasonable level.

If you’re at all familiar with the Bible, you’ve heard of the book of Ecclesiastes.  Solomon, the author of that interesting book, revealed that everything is meaningless.  He had all the riches and wisdom in the world, but it was all meaningless…

…without Christ.

With Christ/God/Jesus/The Holy Spirit, everything is meaningful.  However, without the one True and Holy God, every single thing you’ll ever do, buy, partake in is totally meaningless.  Infinite riches and happiness mean zilch without Christ.

I struggle with doing things that I think are pointless.  For example, I used to work at a grocery store.  Part of my job was “conditioning” the product.  Basically, that means walking around the whole store and making sure the products look good on the shelves.  I made sure that everything was facing the right direction and that all of the rows of stuff were pulled up to the front so that they could be easily reached.  I’d spend hours walking around and pulling the product to the front and straightening it out.  Then…moments after I’d made everything neat and presentable, someone would walk up and take off a bottle of shampoo.  So, my big effort to condition was ruined.  It felt meaningless. 

I did not like seeing all of my effort go to waste.

While I was driving home one evening and pondering all the editing I’d done that day, I thought to myself, “Everything is tedious.”  Not just conditioning in a grocery store.  But everything.  Driving is tedious.  It’s the same thing all the time.  Typing is tedious.  Eating is tedious.  Going to school is tedious.  Sleeping is tedious.  Working is tedious.  Everything is tedious.

It amused me that tedious and meaningless kind of have the same ring to them.  And, since I’m a Bible-believing gal, the similar phrases of everything is meaningless and everything is tedious made me laugh a little.

As encouragement, just remember that no matter how high profile you are or what job you do, everything is tedious.