Go With the Flow

Read Galatians 5:25

25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. (NIV)

For many of us, change is a threat. We may have embraced some welcome change some time ago but feel that we have had our quota, that we can now embrace the status quo and fight off any further change. That becomes a big problem when we seek to do as our text invites us to do: keep in step with the Spirit.

When we try to keep in step with the Spirit, we are embracing the likelihood of change. It is interesting that the biblical metaphors for the Holy Spirit are dynamic not static. He is elusive wind, descending dove, falling fire, flowing water. We do not capture and domesticate him. He captures us and invites us to new adventures.

We can resist the Spirit by deciding to run our own race, control our own lives, go our own way. Fearful of an unknown future, we can become stubbornly attached to our present and thus be blind to what may be possible in the future. Or we can look back nostalgically to a real or imagined golden age of a previous season of the Spirit and thus miss out on what he is doing both now and in the future.

Our life in Christ is a series of new births to new adventures, not just fond remembrance of what has gone before or fixation with what is happening now. The Spirit is always inviting us to continue the journey. The wind is always blowing. We need to hoist our sails to catch the wind and so move in his direction.

Blessings
David Reay