August 25th | Galatians 5

Galatians 5:25, “If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.”

I have been wrestling with what it means to keep in step with the Spirit. Oftentimes, my desire is for the Lord and to walk in His ways, but I find myself falling back into sin. I find that my heart is still wicked and deceitful, and oftentimes I feel that I am falling behind. The Spirit has great plans for me and my life, but I simply can’t keep up. Have you ever felt this way? It sounds good to keep in step with the Spirit, but I seem to be taking steps backward instead of forward in my Christian walk. 

A couple of years ago, I went on vacation with my family, and at the place we stayed, there was a ropes course. They would strap you into a harness, and you would be twenty or thirty feet in the air, walking around on ropes and small bridges up in the air. It was intimidating for me, a grown adult, and my young son wanted to get on it, so I know he had to be afraid. Even though it was scary, he caught on pretty quickly, and I wanted to let him go on his own. We were probably 20 feet in the air, with no handholds, just a few wobbly steps. My son made it out to the middle, and he froze. He started getting scared and looked at me like he was about to die. So I went out and grabbed his hand, but he was too afraid to take a step. So I put my foot next to his and said, "Step with me." And step by step, I led him to the other side, where we could go down. 



For the longest time, I thought keeping in step with the Spirit was like keeping up with the Spirit. He was running and being loving, kind, joyful, and so on, and it was my job to keep up. To be those things in my own strength. But really, it is not like that at all. Keeping in step with the Spirit means clinging to Him desperately, even as we remain frozen in our sin, taking small steps each day. And where is the Spirit leading us? To the cross. Each day. Little steps to take us back to the cross to show us our sin is there. It doesn’t control us. It doesn’t have power over us, but it is on the cross. And our job is to take these steps with the Spirit to keep dying to ourselves, our old life, crucifying our sin each day, and asking the Spirit to produce his fruit in us!