Treadmill

The last few days I have watched this recurring vision. A vision of a treadmill. Now many people use treadmills. A treadmill is great for walking or running when it is cold outside. But the reality of it is, it is nothing like being outside walking. And where do you go? Where do you end up?

I should say in advance I am not a big treadmill fan. There is nothing wrong with them, they just aren’t me. I am an outside kind of guy. I like walking along rivers and through the woods.

I watched this treadmill in the vision. And as I did, it began to get wider. And people were detouring to get on the treadmill. And as more and more got on it would get wider and wider. The treadmill spread out into the “country”. And more people got on. At first as it touched the country it looked like it fit. As people took the initial steps and looked around it was not bad. They stared at the countryside, they looked to the trees. There were rivers and country roads. First, apprehension, but then acceptance.

As time wore one the scene did not change. The same geography was there. If you got on by a stream you stayed by a stream. Got on by a country road and the country road remained. As people began to look around they began to realize they were not making any headway. Not experiencing the “sounds of the ground”. Yes, they were “exercising” but without a destination. Without a place to go.

As I continued to watch, the colors of trees changed from green to gold to red, finally dropping their leaves. The roads went through the seasons of dust rising up off them to late fall rains and finally their view succumbed to the snows. The rivers that had rushed in early, trickling to bubbly sounds and finally to the glassy, ice covered stage.

The people on the treadmill began to look down at the ground. Some fell to the mat and were carried to the back to be deposited off the back. The pile increased. People tried to slow their walk, but the treadmill would not allow them to. They would be moved to the back and take a few quick steps forward so they could relax but the treadmill kept on going. First boredom, then pain would begin to overtake each treadmill walker.

Through the seasons many would hang in there. But an equal amount would fall to the side. Yet even as the piles of people added up more people began to get on.

I looked at the front of the treadmill. From it hung money. And blocks that said “prestige” and “success”. Yet for all the “good” that was at the front people seemed sad. And they could never hold onto it. Most could not even touch it.

The “problems” with the treadmill were multiple.

• You never got where you were going.
• There was never the opportunity to be at rest.
• Just because lots get on does not mean it is where you are to be.
• One speed fits all? Probably not.
• You never get to enjoy or you end up being in the pile up.
• Lots of things attract people to the treadmill. None of them will allow people to enjoy or be fulfilled.
• It feels like you are getting somewhere, but are you really?
• Even when you try to relax, you have to make up for it.
• Seasons come, seasons go. Are you in them?
• Sad that where you get on is where you get off.
• Do you experience life or just a portion of it?
• Not everyone is called to go the same way, do the same thing.

As I thought more and more about it I realized the treadmill was so like religion that binds, that holds back. There was no relationship with one another. Life passed people by and people did not pass through life. Religion keeps people doing something, even if it is not fruitful. It does not necessarily hold people back, it just does not let them get ahead. In this vision, “Exercise” is good but it may not be Godly. Good often is the enemy of God. Idolatry of things or people have the ability to get in the way of the truths of the Lord Jesus Christ.

It is time for the body of Christ to review some simple things. For instance, what is God’s purpose in the earth? (Without a true understanding of that, what is life?) How do you or I plug in with that? It is good to have a call or a destiny, but oh, so much better to understand His purpose. Have we allowed the world’s thinking to interfere with ours? Sometimes you have to break away from tradition in order to see His Kingdom come.

The problem with the treadmill, is so many thought they were going somewhere, accomplishing something, when in fact it was the opposite of all we have been given. It is only out of our understanding of the cross and it’s full provision that we can avoid the entrapment of the treadmill. Oh, there will be stars on the treadmill, but will they truly have life, and life more abundantly?

As I listened to one of the “dads” in my life over the years, he said that each time we open the Bible we open the doorway to the Kingdom. It is an invitation for God to increase in our lives. Perhaps “life abundantly” is a great door to His Kingdom. There is a great desperation in the land. Great desperation opens the door to answers. Like the treadmill, not all answers lead to God. But in the midst of it there is a door. His name is Jesus.

I look at my own life and I see the errors the “treadmill” thinking has caused for me. I often see it in the lives of others. Today I simply ask you to look at your life and be honest with your evaluation. Even “grace” can be a religious endeavor if it is not the person of grace, found in Jesus Christ. My prayer is that we break away from the entrapments of standardized thinking and allow the God of Grace to open our eyes to all that there is.