God's Weight Watchers

I recently joined Weight Watchers. I just want to shed fifteen pounds, but I was getting nowhere on my own. I finally knew I needed the help of someone who had a better way, who had a plan for losing weight and so far I have lost 7 and a half pounds. It’s not as easy to take it off as it is to put it on. So I feel pretty darn good about it.

I can say not all if it was eating issues. I was put on a medication that caused me to gain ten pounds in one month. The other five came from taking up my old habit of eating junk food all the time. Well, truthfully, the ten came from the extreme hunger the medication caused and instead of eating healthy. I grabbed fast food, a lot of it. It was just easier to do it, but the consequences were not worth it.

Sometimes we do that when it comes to our spiritual lives. We try to tackle problems on our own, only to find that often we don’t get far if anywhere at all. Then after a while of trying, we may give in to whatever we were struggling with, a besetting sin, an addiction, or maybe an unchristian attitude toward others. There really is no limit to our struggles in this life. God told Paul’s begging to have a “thorn in his flesh” removed that God’s grace was sufficient for him. We face trials throughout our lives and when we try to deal with them on our own, weariness becomes the result and ultimately, we can lose hope and stumble. It is the easier way to deal with the fatigue of working out our problems.

But God waits patiently for us to turn to him for his help and his own plan for situations. Just like I need Weight Watchers to help me do something I can’t seem to do on my own, so, too, we need the Lord to come and show us the way to deal with the struggles we face. It’s so easy to forget we have the abiding presence of the Lord within us in one of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. Jesus said he would comfort, strengthen and guide us, to reveal God’s plan. The bible says if anyone of you lacks wisdom let him ask it of God, only do it with faith.

Weight Watchers’ wisdom and plan will help me lose the weight I want to, but it won’t help me in any other way. The other struggles I have, I must rely on the Lord who will help me win by the Holy Spirit. And they are more numerous and some are more serious than I want to admit. But the comforter, advocate, strength, the source of God’s wisdom, is prepared for all that troubles us. His help, his plan is what we need to turn to, not our own power and wisdom.

We have an enemy that wants to distract us from that spiritual help. He is clever and has a plan, too. To keep you from turning to God for the grace that is sufficient for all things. Sometimes trials end, sometimes they don’t, but rely on the One to give you strength and wisdom and seek to follow his plan and not your own.

I expect to lose fifteen pounds, but I also will take my trials and tribulations to God, the One who wants me to succeed in all things. His grace is sufficient for me.