Momma's Shortcut: The Fat Shaker!

When I was a child my Mom had a machine that was supposed to shake away fat. The machine had a large motor elevated on a stand to about waist height. A belt wrapped from one side of the motor, around my mother’s posterior, to the other side of the motor. When Mom turned on the fat shaker the living room floor vibrated. It seemed odd to me at the time that a person could shake free from their fat in such a manner, but she swore by it, until the motor broke down.

The fat shaker wasn’t effective because the concept didn’t coincide with the way God designed our bodies to work. It was a short cut answer which circumvented God’s design for not only our physical bodies, but the whole person.

Because God cares about the whole person, He’s not into circumventing issues in our lives to bring easy answers. In fact, much of this life in Christ is about learning to walk through difficult things and removing the mountains instead of walking around them (Mark 11:23).

Consider the outcome of some shortcuts recorded in the Bible:
-Abraham and Sarah’s decision to have a child through Sarah’s handmaiden instead of waiting on God’s plan and timing (Gen 16).
-Simon the Sorcerer’s desire to buy the power to impart God’s Spirit as opposed to seeking relationship with God and being filled with the Spirit (Acts 9).
-David’s decision to carry the Ark of the Covenant on an ox-cart (which resulted in the death of a friend) instead of following God’s prescribed method of transporting the ark (1 Chron 13).

These shortcuts all have one thing in common: they show that God’s perfect will is never accomplished by the flesh of man because true faith is trusting God and obeying His voice. When God prescribes a way of doing something He has in mind to work out what’s best for our entire being; the whole body, soul and spirit of a person. If we invent our own processes of completing His plan we may get to the destination we want, but the casualties we leave amongst our friends, family, finances, personal growth (etc.,etc., etc), can create worse problems.

There are people and circumstances that God wants each of us to affect as we reverently work out our salvation at His direction. Decide today that you will not have things done your way and seek shortcuts to His plans, but you’ll submit fully to His direction and receive the blessings that exist in God’s process of bringing us to His destination!