I love to run in a feast of trees. As many times as I have scurried along those trails, I don't just see something new but I think anew. Sometimes things I have been mulling over, sometimes new ideas breaking through my stupor, and most often a renewed strength for my day.
But on days like today, well, the creek has risen and overflowed its banks, and if I am going to get a run, it is going to have to be on a treadmill.
I am very aware that the treadmill was invented two hundred years ago in 1817 in England as a prison rehabilitation device. It was designed so that as prisoners suffered, they would atone through their sweat. And not until the 1940s, a cardiologist saw it differently to both diagnose and treat heart patients.
And even though it may feel like I am not getting anywhere, it is not torture, but provides me a different kind of workout.
Sometimes God's training plan is not what we expect...or prefer. But it is working toward something we may not even see. It may not seem to matter. It may feel like we are running around in circles or nowhere at all. But faithfulness, even when it does not appear to make sense or doing anything at all, is reflected in how we respond in the crisis and how we trust Him when everything is at stake.
There are no mundane tasks. There are no small obediences. Even when we can't grasp the outcome, or what we are training for, or for whom, even in what we've not done before, God fulfills His profound purposes when we follow Him.
God is building His strength in us. God is building His Kingdom through us. Even when all we can see is a treadmill and a 45 minute workout.
Even when this task appears not to make sense, trust the slow work of God. "Now watch what I do with this:" which is God's fundamental law of the ridiculous. Never so ridiculous at all, but some day incredible.
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