"No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, he pours new wine into new wineskins." - Jesus, Mark 2:21-22
So I have to have read this verse a thousand times before, but last night as I prayed, 'Lord speak to me what I need to hear, even if I won't like it', this is what he brought me to. It really kinda hit me. Because I realize that I'm frusterated at some of the patterns and cycles of failure in my life, and sometimes I want to get frustrated at God for those things. 'You promise to help me why am I still failing?' Or in my less childish moments, 'Why can't I seem to get this under control?' And I got to thinkin' that perhaps Jesus is trying to give me new wine, but I haven't gotten new wineskins yet. I've known for a long time that Jesus is the one who has to change my heart on things, to heal it from its brokenness. No amount of human effort will change the deep brokennesses we all cary. But once you realize that, the temptation is sit back and ask Jesus why he hasn't finished the project yet. What's the deal -- you're supposed to be fixing my heart.
But that's not the way it works.
You can't expect God's new life for you to fit inside your old habits and ways of living. It's true that Jesus is going to bring new life and revive and restore what you could not have yourself, but you've gotta provide the infrastructure for that life to continue living and growing in you. I've been sittin' watching this new life try to turn over and get started, but I haven't been willing to do the hard work myself -- to change my bad habits and behavior. Huh.
Lord forgive me for my laziness and for my love of what you tell me will destroy me.
New wineskins for new wine... Sounds like a good deal to me.
Sunday, August 10
Da update
I've had so many thoughts rollin' around in my head recently that to get them all down seems to be at least a little daunting -- and then as soon as you click on the lights to really get at it, they all scatter leaving me stuttering at the keyboard. I'll start with the happenins, since that's easier:
I just got home from an awesome vacation to visit my family in Arizona. The girl got to come along, which was a real special deal because she doesn't get to see the family down there that often, nor they her. We started off with just a long (and hot!) drive to Colorado in mum's new Accord, headin' for a log cabin in the woods there, and after a day of travel, got to spend a few days just resting, playing board and card games, and enjoying the cooling afternoon Colorado rains that would sweep over us as they passed the continental divide. On one of our last days we took a 3 mile hike through the woods to a 300 foot waterfall. Together with the grass, the mountain ranges, the trees, it's hard to tell if the altitude is the only thing taking your breath away. Once you're at the waterfall, you can climb up a narrower trail and some steep, steep rocks-of-doom to rest behind the waterfall itself about midway up its height. The view is stunning and how often do you get to sit and enjoy God's creation from behind a crystal clear and cool waterfall? We also managed to make it down sans injury which is impressive considering the angle and slipperiness of the rock we climbed up to get there. After we got home that night, it was so good just to rest with that sense of accomplishment and peace that comes from a hike like that.
After another day of travel, we had a few days in Phoenix to spend with family and catch up with some friends before heading back to the Northwest. Rachael and I were very glad to get to see Cody and his relatively new bride Andrea (the last time I was in Arizona it was for their wedding). Andrea and especially Cody have this incredible gift of telling stories so that you could just sit and listen to them for hours about that one time, or when such-and-such happened. It's also good to get to know Andrea better -- though Cody is a long-time friend I didn't really know Andrea until their wedding, so it's good to get to know her better too. It's no secret that I hope both of them will move up here; little visits like these remind me how good of friends they are and how much I miss them and treasure them. We also got to see Brenda, who's recently finished message therapy school, gotten her license, and armed with a chair and table, started to work up a client base. While we had a good visit with her, the apparent sadness behind her eyes reminded me how hard and lonely life is for some of my friends down south, and how my life was much the same while I was there. I've never been able to figure out the sense of oppression and dullness I get when I visit that city, but something seems to hang over the air there that sucks the life out of it. It's at least an item for prayer.
Returning to the Northwest by plane yesterday, it was good to be back in cooler and greener air, not to mention home. Though I'm not sure I'm ready to return to work and business, I'm glad to be back amongst my closest friends and back in familiar surroundings and communities. Church was especially powerful today, as God leads our church family through a real honest and painful process of breaking off our addictions and bondages, of shutting the door to the enemy, I can't help but be excited as we find not only more individual freedom, but more collective freedom as a body. I'm also really excited for how God is moving in some of the elder's and leader's of the church's hearts concerning healing and miracles. God is slowly and surely bringing revival and freedom to my church, and I am deeply excited, pleased, and at peace with what is going on. God has worked with us a lot to form a closeness with each other so that we can all be a real honest-to-goodness family, and move past the 'smile because you're in church' phase. We're real with each other, we're honest, we genuinely care about and know each other, but now God is training us to be an army -- to take that unity He's fostered and put a purpose, vision, and momentum behind it.
It rocks.
I love every bit of it, and I'm excited to be obedient to what's going on.
Which.. all said and done leads me to tonight, with all these thoughts still jumbling around in my head. Since each is best put into it's own entry, I'll try and break them up as I see fit over the next few and as I find myself able to write. God is doing some really awesome stuff in my writer's heart also -- and kinda wiz-banged-revealed-via-His-spirit a significant portion of the story I'm writing while I was away. I feel more motivated than I have in a long time to sit down and chip away at it. I feel like I finally have enough of an understanding of that world and how it's people and cultures work that I can reasonably allow the events to unfold naturally. But more on that and other thoughts to come. For now I am thankful for a God-filled and blessed vacation, and am treasuring the last few hours I have of it before tomorrow.
Thank you Jesus - For everything.
I just got home from an awesome vacation to visit my family in Arizona. The girl got to come along, which was a real special deal because she doesn't get to see the family down there that often, nor they her. We started off with just a long (and hot!) drive to Colorado in mum's new Accord, headin' for a log cabin in the woods there, and after a day of travel, got to spend a few days just resting, playing board and card games, and enjoying the cooling afternoon Colorado rains that would sweep over us as they passed the continental divide. On one of our last days we took a 3 mile hike through the woods to a 300 foot waterfall. Together with the grass, the mountain ranges, the trees, it's hard to tell if the altitude is the only thing taking your breath away. Once you're at the waterfall, you can climb up a narrower trail and some steep, steep rocks-of-doom to rest behind the waterfall itself about midway up its height. The view is stunning and how often do you get to sit and enjoy God's creation from behind a crystal clear and cool waterfall? We also managed to make it down sans injury which is impressive considering the angle and slipperiness of the rock we climbed up to get there. After we got home that night, it was so good just to rest with that sense of accomplishment and peace that comes from a hike like that.
After another day of travel, we had a few days in Phoenix to spend with family and catch up with some friends before heading back to the Northwest. Rachael and I were very glad to get to see Cody and his relatively new bride Andrea (the last time I was in Arizona it was for their wedding). Andrea and especially Cody have this incredible gift of telling stories so that you could just sit and listen to them for hours about that one time, or when such-and-such happened. It's also good to get to know Andrea better -- though Cody is a long-time friend I didn't really know Andrea until their wedding, so it's good to get to know her better too. It's no secret that I hope both of them will move up here; little visits like these remind me how good of friends they are and how much I miss them and treasure them. We also got to see Brenda, who's recently finished message therapy school, gotten her license, and armed with a chair and table, started to work up a client base. While we had a good visit with her, the apparent sadness behind her eyes reminded me how hard and lonely life is for some of my friends down south, and how my life was much the same while I was there. I've never been able to figure out the sense of oppression and dullness I get when I visit that city, but something seems to hang over the air there that sucks the life out of it. It's at least an item for prayer.
Returning to the Northwest by plane yesterday, it was good to be back in cooler and greener air, not to mention home. Though I'm not sure I'm ready to return to work and business, I'm glad to be back amongst my closest friends and back in familiar surroundings and communities. Church was especially powerful today, as God leads our church family through a real honest and painful process of breaking off our addictions and bondages, of shutting the door to the enemy, I can't help but be excited as we find not only more individual freedom, but more collective freedom as a body. I'm also really excited for how God is moving in some of the elder's and leader's of the church's hearts concerning healing and miracles. God is slowly and surely bringing revival and freedom to my church, and I am deeply excited, pleased, and at peace with what is going on. God has worked with us a lot to form a closeness with each other so that we can all be a real honest-to-goodness family, and move past the 'smile because you're in church' phase. We're real with each other, we're honest, we genuinely care about and know each other, but now God is training us to be an army -- to take that unity He's fostered and put a purpose, vision, and momentum behind it.
It rocks.
I love every bit of it, and I'm excited to be obedient to what's going on.
Which.. all said and done leads me to tonight, with all these thoughts still jumbling around in my head. Since each is best put into it's own entry, I'll try and break them up as I see fit over the next few and as I find myself able to write. God is doing some really awesome stuff in my writer's heart also -- and kinda wiz-banged-revealed-via-His-spirit a significant portion of the story I'm writing while I was away. I feel more motivated than I have in a long time to sit down and chip away at it. I feel like I finally have enough of an understanding of that world and how it's people and cultures work that I can reasonably allow the events to unfold naturally. But more on that and other thoughts to come. For now I am thankful for a God-filled and blessed vacation, and am treasuring the last few hours I have of it before tomorrow.
Thank you Jesus - For everything.
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