Perhaps it’s because I’m always looking for a blog post topic, but I find God giving me lessons through the strangest, most “arbitrary” paths.  Or so they seem to me.

This particular lesson involves my bathroom scale.  Yep, it’s back in the news!  I wrote some time back about how God’s mercy and grace were both demonstrated to me when a period of “snack indulging” led to a weight loss the next day.  Grace and mercy in a way I could clearly comprehend.

It’s not my intention to obsess over my bathroom scale, but it appears that God has chosen to use this “instrument of his wisdom” once again.

Many of us live out the reality that our metabolism is not our friend as we add a few more birthdays.  Such is my current decade of experience with this whole issue.  But, true confessions – I have been really bad the past  four or five months.

For example, one afternoon when I was desperate for some kind of snack, I landed on my package of little oyster crackers.  You know the kind, right?  Just the perfect size for a small snack.

Unless you sit down with that package and the butter dish and proceed to “snack” through a third of a stick of butter with your crackers!  Yikes! 

So it came as no surprise when I stepped on the scale a few weeks ago and was mortified to see the highest weight I have ever recorded.  Not the best way to start the day.

And yet it was exactly what I needed to get my attention and get serious about getting things back under control. The shock value was necessary to get my attention.  Big time.

I sat down with pen and paper, wrote down my specific goals, and called a friend to be my accountability partner.  Most importantly, I asked God to give me the fortitude and self-control to attain those goals.

It’s been three weeks since this diet/exercise program began and the one statistic I’ll share with you is this.  I have not had any sweets or chocolate for that full three-week period. 

But the lesson God impressed upon me a few days ago had nothing to do with the weight gain or the subsequent success (so far) of this program.

I want to take you back to my previous statement about the shock value of seeing that number on my scale.  A steadily increasing number wasn’t enough to jumpstart this program.  It took something to jolt me into facing that reality before I took any action.

How often does God have to resort to that technique to get out attention about … anything??  Does he have to figuratively yell, “Hey!” and shake us to get our attention?  Are we distracted by the millions (it seems) of interruptions in our daily lives?

Have you ever pushed yourself too far, physically, emotionally, or mentally, only to have some nasty bug take you to your sickbed for a few days?

Have you ever experienced a near-miss type of accident that caused you to take a major step back or evaluate what you were doing that led to that near miss?

I can’t speak to all of those incidents with 100% certainly, but don’t you think it’s highly probably that God was trying to get our attention through at least some of them?

So my first challenge to us all is to take a step back when we know we’re a bit out of line, and reevaluate what we’re doing and why.  Have you been ignoring those little nudges that you suspect are from God? Have your friends or family been encouraging you to make some changes in some areas of your life?

Maybe those subtle or not-so-subtle reminders are the precursors to God’s next step of shock and awe!

My second challenge is to realize how creative God will be to get our attention in these areas that need adjusting.  Might God speak through your bathroom scale, for example?  As you can see from this post, the lesson had nothing to do with weight.  It was all about what lengths God will go to in order to bring us back to himself.

I’ll admit this post may not follow normal logical paths, but I believe there is a message for us all to chew on. Perhaps we can all do a little self-reflection to see if we’ve been ignoring areas where we suspect God wants us to pay closer attention.

Have you seen the results of ignoring God’s attempts? Are you currently ignoring God?

I’ll leave those answers to each of you.  God got my attention!

May you heed his kind intentions long before you’re shocked into action.

Know this, my beloved brothers:

let every person be quick to hear,

slow to speak, slow to anger;

James 1:19