We do not lose heart, Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 4, though the outer self wastes away. Is it foolish to keep fixing the porch when the whole house sinks?

Useful to whom? In 2 Timothy 2:21 Paul says useful to the master of the house. Busy is not the measure. Jesus showed us what useful looks like with a towel.

Estranged from a brother, a parent, a child? In Genesis 33 Jacob walks toward the brother he wronged, afraid, and meets an embrace. We walk that road with him.