Keep in Step
READ
Paul spends most of Galatians 5 drawing a sharp contrast — the works of the flesh on one side, the fruit of the Spirit on the other. It's a chapter about what a Spirit-led life actually produces: love, joy, peace, patience, and the rest of that familiar list. But right after naming the fruit, Paul adds a short, practical instruction about how that life actually works day to day. It's easy to read past because it's so brief, but it carries an image worth slowing down for.
Read Galatians 5:25 and notice the pace Paul describes.
Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.
REFLECT
"Keep in step with the Spirit." Not run ahead of. Not drag behind. In step.
It's a walking image, not a racing one, and that distinction is worth sitting with, because most of us default to one of two postures with God. Either we're racing ahead — trying to make things happen through our own effort, treating spiritual growth like a project we can accelerate through sheer willpower — or we're lagging behind, waiting for motivation or clarity before we move at all, always a step or two slower than where God already is.
Walking in step with someone requires something different from both of those. If you've ever walked next to a person whose stride doesn't match yours, you know how uncomfortable it feels — someone's always adjusting, either speeding up to catch up or slowing down to wait. In step means matched pace. It means staying close enough, attentive enough, to move exactly when your walking partner moves, without needing to lead and without needing to be dragged.
That's a strange picture for spiritual activity, because we tend to measure faithfulness by output. How much did you get done? How many things did you check off the list — Bible reading, service, ministry, generosity? Paul's language suggests something different is actually being asked of us. He's not primarily interested in your speed. He's interested in your proximity. Are you close enough to the Spirit to actually notice His pace, or are you so far ahead, so caught up in your own agenda, that you couldn't hear an adjustment even if it came?
There's real freedom in this. If activity flows from staying in step rather than striving to get out front, then busyness stops being the goal. You don't have to manufacture more spiritual output to prove you're serious about your faith. You have to stay close. The activity that matters isn't the activity you generated on your own initiative and asked God to bless afterward — it's the activity that comes out of walking closely enough with the Spirit that you're moving where He's already moving.
This also reframes what it looks like when you feel like you're falling behind. Lagging isn't always laziness. Sometimes it's actually a mismatch of pace — trying to keep up with an expectation, a program, or someone else's spiritual rhythm instead of your own walk with God. And racing ahead isn't always passion. Sometimes it's actually anxiety, a fear that if you slow down enough to actually walk in step, you won't be doing enough.
Paul's picture invites something calmer than either of those. Stay close. Notice the pace. Move when the Spirit moves, and don't feel the pressure to get there first.
RESPOND
Take a moment to process what God might be leading you to do in light of what you read.
Which pattern do you tend toward more — racing ahead of God's pace, or lagging behind it?
What would it look like this week to measure faithfulness by proximity to the Spirit rather than by how much you accomplished?
Is there a place right now where you're striving to get out front instead of simply staying in step?
REST
Take a moment to rest in God’s presence and consider one thing you can take away from your time reading, then close your devotional experience by praying:
Jesus, thank You for walking with us instead of demanding we race ahead or catching us as we lag behind. Forgive us for measuring our faith by output instead of by nearness to You. Slow us down where we've been striving, and stir us where we've been stalling. Teach us Your pace. Keep us close enough to move when You move. Amen.