Good morning…

I just stumbled upon a resource I had never met. Through Dictionary.com, I found the “Word of the Day.” What a fun thing to do, learn one new word each day. Today, my new acquaintance is “oenophile,” which mean a person who enjoys wines, usually as a connoisseur.

The key word in this definition is “enjoy.” Wine can be enjoyed or, by it, we can be destroyed. It reminds me of that saying, “The trouble with trouble is that is starts out as fun.” Does our inner wiring allow wine to stay in the fun, enjoyable range, enjoyable to us as we savor sips and fun for others as we partake? If so, then “connoisseur,” a discerning judge, may be a label we wear well. Yet, it is important to wisely discern when our initial fun may be leading to trouble, trouble in our relationships, trouble with our health, trouble with our ability to say “yes” or to say “no.”

Wine itself is not good or bad, fun or trouble. Everything is permissible for me, but not all things are beneficial. Everything is permissible for me, but I will not be enslaved by anything [and brought under its power, allowing it to control me], 1 Corinthians 6:12 (AMP). With wine, just as with any virtue turning vice in excess, our discerning question becomes, “Am I enslaved, brought under its power, allowing it to control me?” The “Word of the Day” morphs into the question for this holiday season, “To what am I enslaved and who is able to help free me?”

It happens so regularly that it’s predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God’s commands, but it’s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge. I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question? The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different, Romans 7:21-25 (MSG),

Sue