Have I wasted my time!
James Cathcart
September 18, 2024
Add to Favourites
Listen to this daily worship
Galatians 4: 8-11 (NRSVA)
8 Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to beings that by nature are not gods. 9 Now, however, that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and beggarly elemental spirits? How can you want to be enslaved to them again? 10 You are observing special days, and months, and seasons, and years. 11 I am afraid that my work for you may have been wasted.
Moving from the major key of the chapter’s opening we can almost hear Paul sag as he sighs here. These verses give us a touching insight into Paul as a real breathing person. The Galatians are falling back into old ways and he’s worried that he’s wasted his time.
What would Paul think now, if he was writing to one of our churches today? Would he worry that he’d wasted his time?
Possibly.
Quite probably.
But I bet he’d also be excited.
He’s Paul so he’d be getting invested.
He’d be letting us have it while also delighting in us.
When Paul wrote these letters he didn’t think he was writing a large portion of the New Testament. And yet the Holy Spirit took this spiky, passionate, wise and cranky man and wove something timeless out of his words, something that’s bigger than Paul himself. Something that’s always new and giving us new ways to hook back in, to get back on track.
Pray:
Forgive us God
when we fall back on old ways
or get distracted by shiny ways
or give in to easy ways.
Forgive us God
when we try to cover our bases
hide our faces
and get obsessed with status.
Forgive us God
when we hang others out to dry,
get hung up on the wrong things
and abruptly hang up on the right things.
Forgive us God
for going through the motions
misdirecting our devotions
and ignoring our emotions
emotions that might tell us to
wake up
shake up
take up
make up.
Amen.
Login to comment.