Welcome to the Galatians 6 Blog!

Hello Brothers and Sisters! Welcome to the Galatians 6 Blog!

This has started as a personal experiment of sorts. What I want to do is create a prayer request blog, or possibly multiple prayer request blogs. My vision is to create an invite-only blog (or blogs), for either the home church group or the men's Bible study I'm involved with (or both). Due to the fact that occasionally there are prayer requests that may be deeply personal in nature, not everyone wants such requests accessible to the huge and public "blogosphere", and I definitely understand and respect that. Being a relative "newbie" blogger, I know from many past experiences in life that the way to figure out how to create what I want and get better at it is to just start playing around with it, especially when it comes to technology related stuff. And now here I am.

So, tonight I humbly admitted my blogging inexperience and asked my friends in my home church group, "What is a good blogging site?" One of the friends told me about 2 primary choices - WordPress and Blogger. He said ultimately there is a cost involved with WordPress, but Blogger is free. When I told him what I was looking to do with a password protected blog, he informed me that was not possible here at Blogger. But, Blogger being free, I figured this is the spot for me to work my way through the learning curve and get more proficient as a "blogger".

How did I come to name this the Galatians 6 Blog? Well, keeping in mind my intent to start a prayer request blog, I started to think about scriptures related to praying for one another. The 1st thought that came to mind was actually Galatians 5:13 - one of my many favorite verses in scripture. It reads: "You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love." Gal. 5:13 NIV. Now, while I love that verse and its message, I know there are others that speak more directly to what I was looking for.

Being in Galatians already, I decided turn the page before going to the "subject index" in the back of my Bible and searching for prayer related verses. I came (obviously) to Galatians 6. I had just highlighted Galatians 6:9 yesterday morning when my friend Vince quoted it, because I loved it's message as well. As I was re-reading it this evening, I knew this was much closer to what I was looking for, and then I read verse 10. Verses 9 & 10 together hit the nail on the head for me. Then I expanded my reading to all of Galatians 6. I have 6:1-5 already highlighted because that is a core message for both the Discipleship Class I'm in, and for the Celebrate Recovery Ministry I'm a part of. In reading the entire chapter, my heart told me naming this the "Galatians 6 Blog" was exactly what needed to be done. Thank you Lord, for the clarity, and for Your hand being present in my life according to Your perfect plan.

I will post all of Galatians 6 separately, but let me post here the verses that first convicted me to name this blog:

"9Let us not become weary of doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. 10Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers." - Galatians 6:9-10 NIV

One of the best things we can do in "doing good to people" is to pray for them. I have personally experienced a change for the better in my walk with God since my prayers have gradually started focusing more and more on others. So I connected the dots, with Galatians 6 talking about doing good to people, and prayer for others as a great way to do good for others, I had the connection I was looking for.

At this point, I think I'll keep this blog as a public place to give praise, explore the Word, talk about my walk with God, and whatever else the Spirit convicts me to write about here. Hopefully something in here will touch someone at some point and lift them up. And as I learn more about blogging, I will also look to create the private prayer request blog idea that got all this started.

So, now we all know how this blog got started and how it got its name. Thank you all for taking the time to read my rantings. And I welcome any and all comments. I'll be back soon. God bless you all!

~Mike