I know I’m not winning. If in the evenings, I reflect on my day it is often the real-life version of whatever the kid they stuck in right field was doing during a t-ball game. I was in the game, but mostly I was spinning in circles, and I didn’t accomplish anything. I’m not even getting the sad participation trophy. The to-do list is still long, the laundry is still piling up, and that one, very simple task you promised your wife you’d do? Still not done.

What am I even doing?

The Foundation That Holds

Scripture offers a surprising answer to our existential questions. In 1 Corinthians 15:58, after an extensive discussion about death, resurrection, and transformation, Paul writes: "Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain."

Steadfast. Immovable.

Do you feel immovable? I’m pushed around by life's constant changes and circumstances. I get bullied by my own thoughts and feelings. Yet Paul calls us to be immovable. How?

It's about the foundation, our understanding of what matters, what lasts. It's about applying what's true to each day. Paul argues that the resurrection is more than a historical fact, more than good news about what will happen at the end of life. The truth transforms daily life.

The eternal perspective we get from the promise of resurrection puts houses and jobs, struggles and victories, nations rising and falling—in their proper places.

The Paradox of Purposeful Work

After all of Paul's talk about resurrection and transformation, about how our earthly bodies will be replaced with heavenly ones, about how flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, you'd expect Paul to say: "So sit back and relax. Don't worry too much about earthly things. Just wait for heaven."

But he doesn't say that at all.

Instead, he says: Get to work. Be steadfast. Abound in the work of the Lord. Because—and this is crucial—your labor is not in vain.

The resurrection doesn't make our present work meaningless. Instead, it can make it eternally valuable.

What you do now matters. The way you love your neighbor, care for your family, serve in your community, pursue justice, show mercy—these things have value that extends beyond this life. Somehow, mysteriously, what we do in obedience to God will find its way through the resurrection power of God into the new creation He will one day make.

The Eternal Weight of Laundry

Moving clothes from the washer to the dryer. Changing diapers. Folding laundry. Completing schoolwork. Going to work. These things don’t have to be pointlessly spinning our wheels. There's a way to do these things that gives them eternal weight. If they the things God has given us to do, if they are in obedience and service to him, they're of eternal value.

Consider the story of Naomi from the book of Ruth. She lived a hard life, lost everything, and ended up simply caring for her daughter-in-law's baby. It seemed like such a small thing, holding a child, helping raise him. But that baby was Obed, the father of Jesse, the father of David—through whose line Jesus himself would come.

Naomi had no idea what God would do with her simple obedience, her faithful care for one child. We don't know either. We can't see with our earthly eyes what God does with our faithful service in what seem like small things.

This means that serving in the nursery or on the yard team. Being on the clean team, grilling at cookouts, fixing faucets, and organizing volunteers are doing just as much good, maybe more, than preaching, teaching, or singing on stage. We don’t know. What we can know is that when we do the thing God has for us to the Lord, it has eternal value.

The Hope That Sustains

The resurrection promises that all things will be made new. The work of restoration has already begun. Every act of love, every moment of teaching, every prayer, every deed that honors Christ and builds up His kingdom—all of it will be transformed and enhanced in the new creation.

"You are not oiling the wheels of a machine that’s about to fall over a cliff. You are not restoring a great painting that’s shortly going to be thrown on the fire. You are not planting roses in a garden that’s about to be dug up for a building site. You are—strange though it may seem, almost as hard to believe as the resurrection itself—accomplishing something which will become, in due course, part of God’s new world." (NT Wright)

So, when you wonder if what you're doing matters, when you feel fragile and frustrated and far from winning—remember the resurrection. Remember that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. Stand firm on that foundation, and let it transform how you see every task, every relationship, every moment of your life.

The same power that raised Jesus from the dead is at work in you, making even the smallest acts of obedience into something eternal.