New Wineskins
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“No one sees a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. Otherwise, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. And no one pours new wine into old wine skins. 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.”
I attempted to write a blog article last night about starting over, but I found myself being bitter instead of better and knew I couldn’t publish it. Reflecting now, I was pouring old wine into new wineskins and it was being rejected. I laugh as I write this because it’s not much different than trying to feed my body junk now that I’ve been drastically changing my diet to better food. Fast food fed to a stomach which has been for the most part grease free for weeks is… not good.
The same goes for emotional nourishment. Mindless games and shallow conversations no longer work for me and are instead agitating. My mind and soul want deep conversation and thought-provoking information. My heart wants to feel that the people I converse with are as interested in me as I am them. Old wineskins pursue without being pursued, losing more energy to leaks than they gain. New wineskins look to be filled from the inside out.
And then I laugh more as I realize the same can be said physically and clothes wise. As I continue working on my health and wellness journey, my fat pants are no longer suitable to wear to the gym. I spend more time trying to keep my sweatpants from falling off than I do working out. My new body, which has resulted from new activities, requires new wineskins (aka clothes).
With each continued day of this journey, the wineskins of my yesterdays will become old, replaced by today’s new. If yesterday’s don’t need replaced, I clearly didn’t stomp the grapes (er, feed myself well in the emotional, intellectual, physical, spiritual, relational, etc. contexts).
I’m tired of being stale, and don’t want to stay in the same wineskins anymore. So I’ll unfollow those who don’t feed me, stop eating food which doesn’t properly nourish me, do more activities which challenge me mentally, and look, more than anything, at how I can be better instead of bitter for Him. The new wineskins full of 1979 will become better with each passing day.
