Have you ever exercised on a treadmill? I know that most treadmills are different, but I think for the most part they all serve the same purpose- exercise.

I was walking (quite briskly I might add) this morning and doing what I normally do when on the treadmill, I was keeping track of the time, calories burned and my distance. As I was doing all of these things a little moth flew in and rested on the side of the treadmill on the part that doesn't move to the right of the track. I didn't like him there so I attempted to shew him away with my foot- probably not a good idea when going at a high rate of speed (sorry, action lovers, I didn't crash). He wasn't moving so I thought to myself "enough!" I jumped my feet off of the moving track and kicked the moth off of the machine and he flew away.

In my momentary satisfaction of getting the moth off of the machine I realized that since the track was still going even though I wasn't on it, I was still burning calories and covering distance. Wait! I wasn't even on the track? The machine had no idea if I was on or not.

I found this interesting. I could have taken it easy and stood on the sides of the machine and burned a TON of calories without the work. What would that get me? Well...nothing. Or, I could have done what I did and that was hop back on and really burn those calories.

Isn't this like our spiritual life sometimes? We may be on a "spiritual treadmill" we are going to Church, doing quiet times, Bible studies and more but we are totally disengaged. We are standing on the side of the machine. What's the point? In the end we've racked hours of quiet times, we've been in Church every time the doors are open we have held spiritual conversations, but we have nothing real to show for it. We have not grown spiritually, we have not been spiritually worked out.

What are you doing today? Are you standing on the sides of the spiritual growth treadmill or are you on the track and really burning those calories?