If you have ever run on a treadmill then you know that a treadmill is a great thing, depending on what your goals are.

Here’s what I mean by that. If your goal is to get in shape without ever having to leave your house, then a treadmill is a great thing and you should get one. You can run for miles, in any kind of weather, and be in exactly the same place when you’re done that you were when you started.

But let’s say your goal is not just to get in shape. Let’s say your goal is to experience nature and see the country around you. In that case, a treadmill is a terrible thing because you can run for miles, in any kind of weather, and be in exactly the same place when you’re done that you were when you started.

That means that if you want to know if a treadmill is a good thing for you, then you need to know what your goals are. You need to know what you want. Because depending on what you want, a treadmill could be either a great ally or your worst enemy.

I think that our lives are kind of like that. 

In order to know if something is a great thing for us, we have to know what we want. Otherwise, we might end up miserable, like a person who longs to be a great explorer but who is doomed to walk forever on a treadmill.

If you feel like your life has started to become more prison than paradise lately, I would suggest that you do something today that you probably don’t do very often. 

Stop what you’re doing and ask why you do it. 

If you’re like many people, you will discover that you do a lot of things you don’t like because you think you have to. And then you deal with that by spending much of the rest of your time trying to disconnect from your life by doing things that ultimately might cause you trouble or just waste your life. 

For those of you who are keeping score at home, that means that you may be doing things you don’t like because you think you have to, and then doing things that are bad for you to escape the things you don’t like.

That's not a treadmill that I, for one, would want to be stuck on. But sometimes, that is where we’re at.

Good news, though. God built you. He knows exactly the life that is great for you. And His plan is actually to give you that life. That doesn’t mean things will never be hard, but it does mean that even the hard things will be valuable and important.

I don't know if you should get a treadmill or not. But I am certain that God wants to give you a life that matters.

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