In the Wind’s Current

“If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.”

Galatians 5:25

Before being encouraged to “walk by [or in] the Spirit” we are reminded by Apostle Paul that everyone who belongs to Christ are to live “crucified” to the desires of self.  Eugene Peterson reflects on the walk in the Spirit in this way, “Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives” (Galatians 5:25 The Message). 

How do we move through life as a community and as individuals who follow Christ?  First, we need to recall that God is a Spirit and that all of our reverence, obedience, worship flows through our spirit with God (see John 4:24).  God operates and accomplishes his will through Spirit within a spiritual realm.  Our response then is first and foremost in spirit.  Thus, God’s Spirit flows and we must be in tune to the current in the “river of life” (Rev. 2:1-2).  God, then, “as a directional current encourages the church to stay in step with the Spirit [and] keeps us moving at the same pace the Spirit is taking” (Carolyn Tennant, “Catch the Wind of the Spirit”).

Chesapeake Bay:
I set sail to the “Wind’s current.”  

Living life in the flow of God’s Spirit, verses our daily grind and struggle, is why Jude shares that we are to encourage each other in the faith as we “pray in the power of the Holy Spirit” (v 20); we are also encouraged to “pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests” (Eph. 6:18).  To communicate with God is to pray, a foundation of our spiritual life, each of us are spiritual being.  We have a spirit and we were made to walk in unison with Spirit.  From the moment God created people we were not left as a clump of organic material, God gave His breath, also translated as wind or spirit, of life and we “became a living being” (Gen. 2:7, 1 Cor. 15:45).  As we walk the journey of life we are to flow in the “current” of God’s Spirit, we are in other words to “live … [and] walk by the Spirit.”  In the Spirit is where we hear the whisper of God’s will, “experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand” (Philippians 4:7 NLT) and learn what His good desire is for us and how we are to serve others.

Swept away in the current,

Owen <><