Old Wine? Is NOT Just Fine!

“But no one who drinks the old wine seems to want the new wine. ‘The old is just fine,’ they say.” Luke 5:39

I’ve read the New Testament. A lot.

I know chunks of it from memory. Without the reference.

If someone starts a scripture, I can finish it a lot of the time. So, reading through the Bible this year has been a lot of re-reading for me, but I refuse to just skim and scan.

I’m seeking God in the scripture. His presence. His message. His plan. Him.

Yesterday I came across some scripture that I could finish verbatim. Then I read the final verse of the chapter, and I paused. I didn’t recognize this one. It seemed different.

Different.

Yes. That was the key idea.

Just because something is different doesn’t make it bad.

So often we get stuck in a rut thinking that the old way was better. Old doesn’t always equal ‘better.’ It just equals more comfortable.

I caught myself about to ask my husband if he’d really be ok with a situation. What was my reasoning for why he shouldn’t be ok with it? It was different. Not like anything we’ve been involved with before.

Did I mention that the other things we’ve been involved with in the past haven’t worked out well for us? We were comfortable with them because it’s how we’ve always done it, not because it was how God wanted it done.

I’m not one for getting rid of everything ‘old school’ to go entirely to the new way of doing things. However, I wonder if I’ve been saying no to the new wine God’s offering me because I’m still attached to the old wine that wasn’t serving me so well.

photo credit: D H Wright via photopin cc