The Spirit in Galilee

And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee.” — LUEE iv. 14.

ayy. OME things in our lives look like meaningless repetitions; we seem to make no progress but to end where we began. Jesus returns to Galilee — returns to the place of His obscurity, the place of His toil. Yet the second Galilee is very different from the first. To the eye of a beholder He is walking amid the old scenes, but to His own eye they are all new; He has “returned in the power of the Spirit.” Thou divine Spirit that didst lead the Son of man back to His first home, I would like thus to be led by Thee. I would like to retrace the old ground with Thy new life in my heart. I would like to go back to Galilee under the influence of Thy power. It is one thing to be in Galilee defore, it is another thing to be in Galilee after the foiling of the tempter. When I return to the world with 7hy power it is no longer the same world to me; I can meet it without fear. Give me that power, O Spirit. Fit me for the scenes of Galilee — the old scenes that used to conquer me. Fit me for the marriage feast of Cana; ripen me for the daily toil of Nazareth. Strengthen me to meet the temptations of the world by teaching me the temptations of the wilderness. Let me learn in the wilderness that my dangers come not from Galilee but from the solitudes of my own soul. Break my solitude with Thine own presence. Create within me Thy divine thirst for fellowship, Thy holy sense of brotherhood. Teach me the incompleteness of my life in the wilderness. Inspire me with the enthusiasm of humanity — the desire to find my crown in carrying another’s cross. Lead me from the hunger for my own daily bread into that sympathy with others’ hunger which says ““Our Father.” Then indeed may I go back without fear and without reproach. Galilee shall open its gates to me; life shall yield her treasures to me; pleasure shall give her hand to me; the Mammon of past unrighteousness shall be a friend to me. I shall return to Galilee in triumph when I come “in the power of the Spirit.”