The Firsts: Galatians 1 – The In-Between Years

Galatians 1: 15 But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, was pleased 16 to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult any human being…21 Then I went to Syria and Cilicia. 22 I was personally unknown to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. 23 They only heard the report: “The man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.” 24 And they praised God because of me. [NIV]

My first thought was the wisdom of Paul essentially tying his relationship to God way back to the womb, the safe place where growth first begins.  We know a lot about Paul’s gift of evangelism.  We know Paul by his fruit that expanded God’s church enough to include the likes of us.  We also know Paul’s history of his dark in-between years and that’s what caught my attention.  Paul’s story is really a story of God’s provision to redeem the flaws of “in-between” years.

The church is our second womb. It’s a God created place full of flawed people with their own in-between years. People that need a safe place to grow. I’ve begun to understand why God would choose to fill his house with those flawed people and still give them Spiritual gifts.  We admire those gifts when we see them work. They’re not just gifts given because they build his church. They’re the same gifts God uses to rebuild the flawed people who find a home there.  

There’s a blessing in knowing I’m a part of the place of rebuilding where what I lack is not the downfall of the church I love.  God has made the church his provision for each of us where your Spiritual gift can become part of my growth as we learn how to expand his Kingdom together.  

Paul writes of that marvelous work of God and his own in-between years that were designed to destroy.  His words are reminders that God uses gifted, flawed people to reveal himself in each of us, in his church and the world. It wasn’t boasting that gave the Apostle Paul the courage to say “…they praised God because of me.”  It was knowing God had taken the dark flaws of his in-between years and made them the reality of his redemption when “preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.”