Wineskins

“No one pours new wine into old wineskins.  Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined.  No, they pour new wine into new wineskins.” – Mark 2:22

 Continuation from the previous post…

So I asked God, is there anything better than this life I'm living right now?  He said, Yes and that’s when the journey began!  He started by bringing my attention to Jesus’ words about wineskins.  This old-wine way in which I was living had to change.  It wasn’t working anymore – at least not very well.  I was usually stressed trying to keep a pace I could not keep.  I worried about tiny little things that felt big but mattered little!  There was a point when sleeping pills and anti-depressants seemed the best viable option.  Something was wrong.  Where was the abundant Joy promised in John 10:10?  If his burden was easy and his yoke light, why didn’t it feel that way? 

Like Abraham, Moses, Rahab, the disciples,...and maybe you,... God was inviting me out of the familiar way in which I lived into a new way of living; and it began with the whisperings of wineskins.   God was going to do something new.  He was going to pour his NEW wine into me.  But to do so meant letting the old wineskins go so he could establish new wineskins, ones capable of holding what he was about to pour forth.  It’s such a grand idea, right?  Yes indeed!   But wine skins don’t go away very easily.

 I grew accustom to these familiar vessels called "life habits".  For instance, to deal with my compulsion to worry I had to shift where I placed my trust; which meant moving it from circumstances to the goodness of God. Sure my intellect agreed God was good, but apparently the rest of me covertly rebelled against the idea because I usually blamed God when the circumstances weren't good.  Now you would think at this point God would come in like a knight-in-shining-armor, sweep me up and reassure me he is indeed the good hero I longed for him to be.  That is not what he did.  Instead he went silent. 

 There was a cold stillness that came upon me, the likes of which I had not known before.   It rolled in like a storm off the coast and brought with it a shadowing-cloud darkness.  I begged God to show up and bring the light of his presence.  I cried out to him but his answer seemed nowhere.  How could God be so cruel? Hadn’t I turned to him? Hadn’t I agreed with him to take this journey?  I longed to companion with him and he was gone.  Here is a journal entry from that time.


November 8, 2009 -
"Lord, how am I supposed to 'be still and know you are God like this?  When I am still you are silent.  You've said, 'Seek me and find me when you have sought me with your whole heart' Well here I am!  - Sitting in this place waiting for you - It's pathetic really.  Here I sit waiting for a God who never shows up, who sits on His throne mocking this little creature that waits.  I've been had!  Oh the time I've wasted looking for you!  Others have asked, 'Where is your God?' and I would say, 'Oh He's here ...just hard to see.'  I sounded like a child giving credence to her imaginary friend!  I don't really want to drive a stake in the ground regarding your absence but you are leaving me with little choice!  How I long to be found, to be seen by you and know you more.  Love is not dismissive - yet here I sit, dismissed by you....If you are who you say you are then SHOW UP PLEASE!  If I don't hear from you, I'll know where we stand.  Goodbye."

I felt so abandoned!  Though I took comfort in the fact that Jesus had a similar cry (though much less wordy and perhaps more respectful), when at the cross He cried out “My God, my God!  Why have you forsaken me?”  There’s a terrific tempest that enters the soul as God goes silent and I did not see right away that, though silent, God was indeed quite present.  His pathway was leading through the sea, his way was through the mighty waters though, at the time, I could not see his footprints (Ps 77:19.) 

This wineskin of trusting my circumstances in order to experience and believe God’s love and goodness, was being shed in the storm.

What I know is that even when I could not feel His nearness, He was near. He tethered me in the storm and kept me close.

More next time….