Ephesians 4:17
“This therefore I say and testify in the Lord: You are no longer to walk as also the Gentiles are walking, in the futility of their mind.”
A synonym for futility is uselessness. A person has a right to be useless. But it seems the opposite of purpose driven. Most want to have some significance or meaning.
We aren't to walk in a useless manner. Paul claims that's how the gentiles live. He means unbelievers. He's not criticizing races of people. Other versions call it vanity or emptiness.
How do we do this? We could look to the commandments and seek to follow them. Jesus reduced the commandments to two, love God and love people. That's good. What is in the fore or my mind is to live life in the fear of God. Meaning as we go throughout our days, we are to acknowledge Him in all circumstances (Proverbs 3:5,6). Lord, give me wisdom here, help me to be loving, help me to forgive and so on.
We have a blanket surrender with God. When we invite Jesus into our lives that a surrender. However, as we live and walk with Christ, He'll find other doors that are closed and knock on those. We learn to trust Him. We know that He is gentle and that He won't overwhelm or embarrass us.
How does the unbeliever live uselessly? I would say they don't fear God. Not so much that they don't believe in Him, but they don't include Him in their decisions. Romans 1:21 describes it, "For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their reasonings, and their senseless hearts were darkened."
God gives us the right to ignore Him, but in doing so He removes Himself from them and they become defective. They don't think right. What's bizarre is that they are unaware of it. Their "senseless hearts are darkened". It's like the sun slowly descending, we can miss that until we see it's dusk. We don't recognize the encroaching darkness.
This is contrasted to the believer. Proverbs 4:18 says, "But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn that shines brighter and brighter until the full day." Our live's become fuller and wiser.
This is conjecture, but I think the closer we get to God, things get brighter and the further away we go things become dimmer. If we reject Him, then we are quite far and our "senseless hearts are darkened".
The amazing part of this is that God is always there for us. Isaiah 65:2 says, "All day long I have held out My hands to an obstinate people who walk in the wrong path, who follow their own imaginations." He is always there ready to accept and welcome us. We would get frustrated and angry if we were stood up or ignored. But God is patient and waits. He actively lures us. His love is so great we couldn't comprehend it.
Lord, help us stay close to You. Thank You for being available to us. Thank You for welcoming us and filling us. Help us not to walk in the futility of our minds, but to be purposeful.