I remember being puzzled for a long time about what Jesus meant when he said old wineskins can't hold new wine. In the same way, a new life, a new way of living, can't be carried on while still using the old containers that got us through, day to day. 'Containers' in a metaphorical sense, say those logics and rules-to-live-by that we accessed and used on a daily basis, as much as and as perfunctorily as Tupperware. Jesus' way of living and understanding God turned it all upside down. Time to throw out those mauve-colored, flower-imprinted 70's Rubbermaids, folks, and bring in the Gladware!
Now I get it, more than I used to, anyway, and in a new way. And I would like to offer two positive spins on the New Wineskins phenomenon, which I am now convinced that God throws our way throughout the entire duration of our lives. That's right, He's so dynamic that He sees fit to make our ways of doing things inoperable, obsolete, or just utterly unfitting when we grow spiritually. A girl growing in faith can't sport those dying, old, loosened, unsupportive, and -- let's be honest, homely -- brown flats forever. She needs tighter, more fitting boots (or whatever kind of shoes) that she can wear confidently on the new stretch of sidewalk she's on now. The old ones just won't ever do anymore.
I think only God can give us the power to see old things in new ways. This can be a blessing readily felt and discerned as such, as in the case of example one. Or it can be an immensely painful, gradual revelation or turn-of-plans that God delivers, which forces you to see the old things in new ways, because the old has gone and exists no longer. Imagine it as much as you want, pine for it, and so on, but it is no longer a fact and therefore no longer a reality. Reality has changed and He calls us to see the new reality for what it really is. And to assess all that He is now calling us to.
Example one. This past summer, I spent eight weeks collecting data on alternative certification programs. When the time came to write up my results at the end of the summer, I was thoroughly tired of the data. I had become overexposed to it. I pushed through completing that final report, but it felt like a mere formality, and the finished product didn't do the data justice. I put the data away for four months. And reluctantly picked it back up again in December to write my business final paper. And with the help of my professor, I can honestly say that data and my passion for it was 100% resuscitated. The way I had looked at it -- as boring, dead, with no potential for creating anything interesting -- was totally transformed by December 17th at 5:00 p.m., when I had finished writing about how the data did in fact exhibit trends of resource partitioning theory. I can't explain the experience as anything other than a miracle! My spark and love for a subject matter dear to me became dear to me again!
Example two. This one is harder to stomach, but I have faith that God will bring my understanding of it (dare I even say, appreciation of it?) to the same point of gratitude later in life, when I can understand it better. As it is now, in this instance, which I will leave more vague, I face many happy memories that are now squarely in the past and can't be drawn up to be true again. I have to somehow let the former things stay in the past, not dwell on where my life once was and where it is now. Don't get me wrong, I love my life and where I am. It's all God's doing. But the loss of that blessed shady vine He gave me to comfort me in the sun-scorched places of life (I'm drawing on two Biblical images here, one in Jonah and the other in Psalms [I think?]), it's very hard to do without now. I am slowly learning to appreciate God as the Giver of all good things, but that all good things can't remain. Because maybe they can't hold us where we are anymore, like this once could.
Now's time to have faith.
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