New Wine Skins

Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. (Thomas A. Edison)

We must not get tired of doing good. We will receive our harvest of eternal life at the right time. We must not give up. (Galatians 6:9)

It is easy to grow weary, much harder to regain momentum when we have been stagnant way too long! We will face trials - challenges beyond our 'natural' reasoning, ability, or strength. What we do when we stand face-to-face with those challenges makes all the difference! Will we turn and run? Will we stand up and fight in our own strength? Or will we turn to Christ for wisdom, renewal, and increased capacity?

Sometimes we think the only thing we need when facing a hard challenge is to have more strength. More 'ability' to handle it. More 'intel' about the situation. The truth is that we might just need more capacity! Old wine skins were never meant to hold new wine. Why? As time passed, the new wine would expand until it burst from the old wine skin. God isn't trying to make us 'burst' spiritually, mentally, or even physically. He may be trying to put us into a new wine skin!

In basic training, one of my Drill Sergeants used to tell us all the time: "Giving up is not an option!" It wasn't optional - we needed to dig deeper, find some inner strength, push beyond our weariness, and move on. Those long road marches, physical training drills, long days at the obstacle courses, and even the 'after hour' boot polishing and uniform ironing were enough to do a sane person in! But...giving up was not optional! May I just say this to those of us who are facing challenges way beyond what seems 'natural' for us to handle today: "Giving up is not optional!"

Christ beckons us onward - not with the same old techniques as we used in the past. He is beckoning us into 'new wine skins' - we haven't been this way before and we need to allow him to 'outfit' us for the journey. Capacity isn't often part of our prayers when going through tough stuff, but maybe it should move up on our list. Just sayin!