Day 24

“Brethren, if any person is overtaken in misconduct or sin of any sort, you who are spiritual [who are responsive to and controlled by the Spirit] should set him right and restore and reinstate him, without any sense of… (verse 1b – 2)

– Galatians 6:1-2

When I was in basic training, my favorite part was learning how to read maps and navigating terrain with a map and a compass. NOT!!! Actually, I was terrible at it and I was not the only one.

One day, my drill sergeants decided to split us up into groups of 5 and send us out to try to get to a certain point, but using different routes. However, my wonderful drill sergeant put all of us who were struggling to learn the maps in one group. After about 2 hours of playing pass the map to the guy who thinks he knows where he’s going, and climbing half way up a massive mountain, I finally suggested that we stop and regroup. The soldier in my group holding the map at the time said that he believed we needed to go back down the mountain, which we had done twice already. He insisted that if we listened to him in the first place we would not be in this situation. I then asked to look at the map and he said there was no need because he knew what to do. Although everything in me wanted to continue up the mountain on my own, I reluctantly headed back down with the group. When we got to the bottom, I knew we were still lost, and I asked for the map again. I looked at the map and realized that he was looking at the map upside down the whole time. At that very moment, my drill sergeant came down the mountain behind us and saw me holding the map upside down and I ended up getting in trouble for leading us wrong the whole day.

Like this situation, there may have been times in the past where you were with friends, going into a situation where something felt off, but you still just went along with it and things ended badly. Sometimes it is hard to speak up when the majority is ready to just go with the flow, but God’s Word says that it is our responsibility to speak up. Galatians 6 says that because we are Spirit-filled, it is our job to bring restoration to those caught in sin.  We are not to be overbearing or condescending, but to be gentle and carry each other’s burdens. We must be attentive to ourselves but as brothers and sisters, we are called by God’s Word to have each other’s backs as well.

Stay strong and carry on,

Carrington