If your feet are moving endlessly but you’re going nowhere, maybe you’re on a treadmill. The “children of Israel” (once known as Jacob) had trodden waterwheels endlessly on the Nile Delta before God delivered them from Egypt, so when God told them: “Everywhere in the Promised Land you place the soles of your feet will be yours.” — they were relieved to know that from then on their feet would be on the ground instead of on wooden waterwheels!
“For the land which you go to possess is not like the land of Egypt from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and watered it by foot, like a vegetable garden.” (Deuteronomy 11:10) Instead, it would be “a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water from the rain of heaven”. The topography of Egypt had been flat and uninteresting, but that of Canaan would be more interesting and less predictable, with hills and valleys and even mountains!
During my teen years as a dairy farmer, I directed water with a shovel by foot from small channels onto fields divided by banks into sections. I watered them one at a time. It was slow work, done in summer, when the once grassy fields would have dried and died if not for daily flood irrigation. Yes, it was slow work, but better than treading waterwheels by foot. After flooding each section, I moved on to others. It was good to watch the grass gradually turn green. Good food for grazing cows!
Entering into the Promised Land meant no more endless steps on Egyptian water treadmills; no more walking and going nowhere! If the people now walked in God’s ways, He would drive out their enemies from before them. They would occupy the land “little by little” so that weeds would not grow faster than crops were planted.
The same goes for us. Our feet can tread the “same old same old” or they can take us places God wants us to go! Our words take us where we want to go, so the first thing we should do is start talking about where we want to go and what we plan to do when we get there.
Begin by talking to yourself (no one will notice; they’ll think you’re talking on your mobile). The psalmist did that when he said, “Bless the LORD, O my soul!” He was saying, “Bless the LORD, I say to myself!” (Psalm 103:1) Talk with the Lord and then self-talk what He then says to you. You’ll soon know which way to go and then to tell others where it is you’re going.
Some Christians miss that old religious treadmill. Many Israelites said: “Remember the garlic, and all those nice leeks and onions our feet trod? Ah, those spices!” (Not knowing that thousands of years later, people would pay good money to step on treadmills at their local gym. I realize that exercise treadmills are aids to fitness, but so too is distance walking — and with that you’ll sweat less and have better views.)
Your feet are made for walking — your boots just protect them. So, turn away from that old treadmill and use your feet to better effect. You’ll be so relieved to know that at last you’re actually going somewhere!