A BEETLE AND A FLIP-FLOP: AN ANALOGY FOR CHANGE
It is good for me that I have been afflicted that I may learn Your statutes
Psalm 119:71
Have you ever found yourself running back to God when you were in pain? I know many Christians can testify to the fact that pain can be a powerful motivator in getting them to line up their thinking and actions with God’s Word. One year when my daughter was at church camp, she had an encounter with a beetle that served as a unique reminder about how God can use painful conditions to get our attention and to change our course of action.
One day while at the church camp, my daughter walked into the bathroom and found a beetle lying on the floor on its back with its legs flailing in the air as it struggled to upright itself. My daughter (being a nature-lover) took off one of her flip-flops and used the edge of it to turn the beetle gently over onto its belly. However, as soon as she did the beetle immediately rolled onto its back again. She then patiently repeated the process of using her flip-flop as a beetle spatula and returned it to its correct position, but the stubborn beetle once again flipped over onto its back.
She repeated this process several times but then started to get frustrated with the beetle as she watched it there, legs struggling helplessly and shifting around on its hard shell. She thought how she was trying to help the poor creature, but it would not cooperate with her for its own good.
As she stood there, the flip-flop she was holding accidentally fell out of her hand and landed directly on top of the beetle! To her amazement, the sandal succeeded in turning the beetle over again onto its stomach, but that time it stayed on its feet and then quickly scurried away. The hard blow from the dropped flip flop had achieved what she could not in her gentle attempts to set the beetle straight.
She viewed the beetle episode as an analogy of how God sometimes must reach out to us using painful or unpleasant conditions in order to get our attention . For a while, He may try reaching us through gentle prodding to motivate us to realign our lives with His Word. If that does not work He will do whatever He must to bring us back to Him.