The Boston Marathon takes place in April. For me, that meant training for it in the winter, in Montana, where it has been known to get a little chilly, with a wee bit of snow.
One weekend, when the temperature went negative, the roads were sheathed in ice, and 4-inches of snow blanketed the sidewalks, the training plan I was following had an 18-mile run scheduled. Instead of enduring the elements, I decided to head inside to the warm, cozy confines of the health club to run on a treadmill.
Once I started running, even though I began sweating and breathing hard, just like I would have outside, I quickly got incredibly bored, because unlike outside, the scenery never changed. For all the effort I was exerting, I remained in the same place.
As I came to this realization, I looked down at the monitor, saw I had run about 3 out of 18 miles, and groaned at how much longer I would be on the treadmill. In that moment, I understood why some runners refer to the device I was running on as “The Dreadmill.”
There is a frustrating disconnect when we expend a lot of energy, but don’t see any progress or advancement. This frustration is true in our spiritual lives, too. Peter addresses this issue in his second letter to believers. First, he lists character-building actions and disciplines we should develop in our spiritual lives: faith, goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, mutual affection and love (2 Peter 1:5-6).
And then he adds, this: “For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:8).
He is reminding us we need to keep growing and advancing in all aspects of our spiritual journey; to keep our faith from becoming stagnant; to keep progressing; to keep growing closer to Christ.
We should be able to mark progress in each of these areas Peter lists. For example, as we become more spiritually mature, when we encounter various trials and troubles, we should be able to notice we have become quicker to listen, slower to speak and slower to become angry (James 1:18-20) than we would have in the past.
The scenery around us should change, spiritually speaking. Otherwise, our spiritual life will stuck on a treadmill, and become stale and frustrating.
How has scenery of your spiritual life changed over the last 5 years, or the last year, or since you started the Community Bible Experience readings?
These are some of my favorite verses and so happy to see you sharing them. Although I must confess the longer I’m a Christian, the more I realize how little I know. I am progressing, sometimes at the pace of a turtle with crutches, but I am progressing. In baby steps, not leaps and bounds and it is delightful. He reveals Himself to me in unexpected ways. He alone is faithful!