Good morning…
In my dream I had gotten a brand new car, and the next morning I woke thrilled to spin away on my spiffy fresh wheels. Pushing the automatic opener attached to my pristine sun visor, I opened the garage door to make my car’s maiden voyage. Fiddling with the new feel, I put the car in reverse and stepped on the gas pedal.
THUD. HALT. OH NO. A loud, horrible sound jerked me to a stop. A creature of unconscious habit, I had parked my old car directly behind my new one before I had gone to bed. Now I had ruined both cars in the same stupid instant. Startled awake from my dream, I thought “What’s this all about?” As I prayerfully pondered, a story Jesus told expanded in my mind.
But no one puts a piece of unshrunk (new) cloth on an old garment; for the patch pulls away from the garment, and a worse tear results. Nor is new wine put into old wineskins [that have lost their elasticity]; otherwise the wineskins burst, and the [fermenting] wine spills and the wineskins are ruined. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, so both are preserved” (Matthew 9:16-18, AMP). The footnote beneath this passage explains, “A skin was a bag made from the skin of an animal. New wine was always put in a new bag so that the bag would stretch as the wine continued to ferment, and then the bag would harden. An old bag would burst if new wine was put in it.” Again I asked myself, “What’s this all about?”
I thought back to yesterday’s post. If the “joy of Jesus” is to be implanted within our human hearts, the fermenting process will require stretching elasticity from you and from me. If Jesus’ joy is to be made full, to grow complete, to effortlessly overflow from us to all people, we will need to let go of rigid rules, handed down and hardened, and invest our whole selves, mind, soul, and heart, in God’s radical renewal stretching us out of our complacent comfort.
The trouble with this concept as depicted in my dream is that our old car, our old selfish self, our old hard, hurtful habits sit squarely in our way, blocking the expansive progress of our Re-Creator, who pours out a powerful promise, “Look, I’m making everything new!” (Revelation 21:5a, MSG).
LORD, forgive our unconscious accidents, and teach us to learn from the moments when we run over and ruin Your gestating joy. Help us to find the right set of car keys to remove from Your path our outdated car, our hardened wineskins, our garment of old, unhealthy habits. Like fresh wineskins, fill our hearts with the expanding “joy of Jesus” so that all living things may be stretched wide and preserved.
But Jesus must stay in heaven until God makes all things new, just as his holy prophets promised long ago (Acts 3:21, CEV).
…Sue…
