I pant away on this treadmill, always moving and yet always just right here in the same spot. All my life seems like this. A constant movement, yet nothing ever seems to go forward.
With the words of Gungor’s Beautiful Things declaring how He makes me new from tiny earphones I shout in my mind a great big question.
“Why am I doing all of this, God?”
Why am getting up, spinning my wheels, answering these emails, folding this laundry, reading these books, writing out these words, teaching these children, grabbing every moment and by His grace attempting to use it to make something more out of ashes?
So many of the moments crumble and I am left sweeping pieces and making something else out of all this dream and effort that broke like glass on concrete.
Then tomorrow, I will do it all again.
I don’t want to grow weary in doing good. But I want the running and the hoping and the craziness to be for something greater than this moment, this day, this year, this life.
“It is for you and it is for Me,” He says. “Haven’t we been through so much it is worth going through just a little more? If nothing else, at the end of all your labor and faith, you will have Me and I will have you.”
To be loved like this by a holy God is too much to bear. Tears well up as I plant another step in front of this one. I see that what I do for Him, He has asked me to do for many reasons. My labor is for Him, and it bears sweet fruit that sometimes is veiled by shadows.
Deep within me, my soul is feasting and full with His word, His love, and His presence. I may seem to be running in place, but I fly with angels on this machine in the middle of a busy gym.
I was once just a little heap of dust waiting for something to be made of me. Then God came and made me beautiful. Look how far I’ve come.
Just think of how far we are all meant to go.
There’s no telling where my spinning wheels will take me. But one thing is certain: He will be with me. His presence is no carrot on the end of a stick, or empty dream that will crash down around us.
His presence is His promise. That is worth all the effort I can muster and more.
