In episode 191, “Don’t Go Back”, Brooke & Faren discuss the meaning of Galatians 4:8-9 in the Bible. Choose to focus on serving God instead of falling back into old, bad habits that keep you from growing in the Lord. Learn how to pray about it, talk about with others, and live out how this scripture applies to everyday life. The Galatians mini series begins on episode 189 and goes through episode 193 of the Witty & Gritty podcast.
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Reading About Old, Bad Habits
If you tuned into the previous Galatians episodes, hopefully you’ve read chapters 1-2 of Galatians. If not, no worries! See if you can make time to do that in the next couple of days. In today’s episode, “Don’t Go Back”, we make a note that today’s verse is under the section titled “Paul’s concern for the Galatians”, which is very fitting for the tone of the letter.
“Before you Gentiles knew God, you were slaves to so-called gods that do not even exist. So now that you know God (or should I say, now that God knows you), why do you want to go back again and become slaves once more to the weak and useless spiritual principles of this world?”
Galatians 4:8-9
Paul is truly concerned with the people of Galatia and wants what’s best for them (God’s plan). We can see from these verses that they struggled with what we struggle with today: falling back into old, bad habits. In verses 8-9 Paul asks them, “Why do you want to go back?” We have all felt the struggle of finally ridding ourselves of something bad for us, and then feel that pull to go back. Don’t fall for that trap! Side note: we also address how to have these tough conversations with our loved ones who are struggling.
Praying On Breaking Free from Old Ways
No one is exempt form falling into sin traps, but what we can do is pray about it! Talk with God and think on some of the following items. Ask God to show you where you those areas in life that need some work:
- What am I letting take precedence over God?
- Are there pockets of life I need more of God?
- Am I struggling with people pleasing, addiction, control, workaholism, etc…?
- God, show me patterns or habits that are making less of you.
Maybe you had every intention of having a good habit, but then it morphed into a bad habit? An example of this could be the goal of working hard at your job, but overtime you turned into a workaholic. You’ve heard the phrase “You are a slave to which that controls you”, and that’s founded in the Biblical truth that you cannot serve two masters. Once you and God have talked about these areas of life, it’s time to step into action. Don’t go it alone! Keep reading below.
Talking About Accountability and Boundaries
Now that you’ve established your problem areas, it’s time to shine a light on them. Ask God for guidance of your first steps toward a better path. One of these steps will be confession to a trusted friend, and put boundaries and accountability in place. This is where you home group comes in handy (don’t they always?!). Work through wise and healthy boundaries, say them out loud, and let your crew keep you on track as needed.
If you’re still not sure what areas need refinement, you can bring this up to your home group as well (or counselor, inner circle, trusted friend). They can kindly nudge you in the right direction, and then you can chip away toward a more God-centered lifestyle. Tune into episode 191 (scroll up and press play) to hear our tips on how to stop bad habits, build u new ones, and surround yourself with people who can help you stay on track.
Telling Our Kids Our Why
Now it’s time to take this skill set of what we’ve been working on and turning that wisdom around to help our kids. We give several examples of how to do this in the episode, so if you need further explanation or different ideas, press play on episode 191, “Don’t Go Back.” We talk about the importance of modeling the proper behavior along with talking about why we’re doing it. This helps our kids understand what God desires, how it looks, and what they can do to learn how to do this.
Yes, there will be times when your soccer team is getting destroyed by a team who’s breaking the rules, but your job is to model, remind, and share why you are rising above and fulfilling God’s desires (even though sometimes it’s not fun at all). Ultimately, you are accountable for your actions, and that’s what we can teach our kids. Again, we give several different examples int he episode, so be sure to check that out.
We hope you enjoyed episode 191, “Don’t Go Back”, with our read, pray, talk, tell insight. Now it’s up to you to work through the Bible chapter discussed, pray about this verse using the prompts given, have biblical community around this verse, and go point others to Christ with the tips we give. Remember, when you read, pray, talk, tell consistently, you’ll grow your faith in God more deeply. Tune in next week to hear another breakdown of a Bible verse!
Links From the Show
- Sherri LaBarbera’s Recovery Programs episode 186
- Atomic Habits Mini Series, episodes 103-111
- Get Out of Your Head Mini Series, episodes 84-91
- The Bible Project
