What does today's story and God's Story Scripture say about getting "cut in" on?
I know, you are probably thinking, not another Olympic story in the daily bide. Two reasons I take you back to the Vancouver Olympic games, first, I keep hearing people say how much they miss watching it every night and second, the Olympics helped this verse in Galatians come alive for me recently.
I was reading it and the phrase “cut in on you” jumped out. I could picture the Olympic short track skating races I had been watching. Multiple times I saw racers “cut in on” each other to better position themselves and pull ahead. A certain degree of cutting in is expected in the sport, but go too far, as Apollo Ohno and others found out and you can be disqualified.
Close your eyes and picture one of those short track races you watched in the Olympics. Got the image? Now imagine one or more of the skaters as they cut in to the inside of the track. As they do it, they cut off someone who was up until then skating a good race. The act of cutting in has at least slowed down the other racer if not totally thrown them off their pace all together. The act of being cut in on has distracted them and ended their race.
This act of becoming distracted and losing the race is what Paul is referring to in Galatians 5. He is asking the church in Galatia how they could have let themselves be “cut in on” and thrown off pace and kept from following Jesus.
Who do you think might be cutting in on us as we seek to stay on track with Jesus?
