Stuck on a treadmill?

I don’t run with scissors. Actually, let’s be honest, I don’t run (unless it’s an emergency – then you’d better run too!). But if I were to take up running (for any other reason than being late), I’d want to run in a park, on a track, down the street even and not on a treadmill! To me that just means a whole lot of energy expended for no visual progress (unless you include the digital display showing how far you have effectively run on the spot!)

I’d have to say though, that often in life, instead of running or walking down life’s road we can find ourselves stuck on a treadmill, expending just as much effort, but nonetheless going nowhere. We can be stuck in no mans land between the promise and its fulfilment with no sense of progress. A door has closed, but unlike bumbling Agent Maxwell Smart in Get Smart the next door hasn’t opened immediately on exiting the first.

It’s times like these that we need to find within ourselves the strength to keep going. To know that the fulfilment of the promise is ahead of us. It’s easy to get discouraged. It’s easy to quit. But it takes someone of great faith to stay the course.  We need to remember we have victory in our DNA. We have staying power. Through Christ, we are more than conquerors!

Don’t sit around depressed and defeated. Don’t sit down thinking of who wronged you, or what didn’t work out or what you didn’t do right. Don’t give up because the report doesn’t look good, because you tried and failed, because it is taking longer than you thought. Don’t let the setbacks keep you on the treadmill forever! You have a destiny to fulfil. Don’t give up on what God has placed in your heart!

There has to be a relentlessness on the inside of us, a refusal to quit. We need to remember that the best days are still ahead of us! To remember that God has plans to prosper us, plans to give us hope and a future.

So get off that treadmill and take to the road! Keep going, keep pressing forward – you never know what is just round the corner!