You Can't Win Them All

You can't win them all. That's what struck me when I was reading in Galatians today. In the first chapter, Paul is hounding the people of Galatia saying, "Hey! I told you something miraculous - why are you ignoring it?"

He points out that his life is a changed life. I can't think of one more changed. He was specifically one that attacked Christians, then he is confronted by Jesus Christ himself (note, this is the Jesus Christ that was crucified, but raised from the dead). This confrontation resulted in him receiving a divine revelation that taught him the message that we now call the Gospel.

He went from being a killer of Christians to being a creator of Christians. And given that he had the message directly from Jesus, the resurrected Christ (and not hearsay) it was a pretty direct and compelling message.

I can understand why he would write this letter to these people. He's astonished that they could ignore such an amazing love and call to love. So, sorry Paul, you can't win them all.

But you know what. I've read and heard the story too. I believe it. And I find myself struggling in my day to day to be victorious. Some days, I'm great. others, I struggle. In fact, as a new Christian, I was confronted regularly about things that God says in the Bible that I should apply to my life.

Take swearing. When I was in High School, everybody did it. I grew up in a military family. It was fairly normal in military life. You hear "Bad Words" quite often, but at what point and time did I realize that I didn't have control over it.

For me, I was an adult with four kids. I was playing soccer and someone took me down from behind. I landed on and split my knee cap. As I rolled around on the ground, I was swearing up a storm. That night and into the next week, my mind kept coming back to that. I was put in a cast from my toes to my hip, but what dug into my mind more was not my knee, but the fact that my teammates all knew I was a Christian, and I just went off so bad I could make a sailor blush.

I'm not perfect, but I've gone through more broken bones, car accidents, and heated discussions since that time. My words have changed. I'm more creative. There are more laughs after I "swear" with a Yosemite Sam "Dag-Nabbit!" than if I had said something else.

I can't win them all either. But I have made some huge strides in pushing back the dark side of myself.

What about you? What things (big or small) have you made huge strides in? Perhaps a full 180 like Paul?