Happy Thursday
Luke 5:37 (NIV)
“And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined.”
There’s a quiet honesty in this picture.
New wine is alive—it’s still fermenting, still expanding, still becoming. Old wineskins, though, have already been stretched to their limit. They’ve served their purpose, but they no longer have the flexibility to hold something that’s still growing.
So the issue isn’t the wine.
And it isn’t that the wineskin was bad.
It’s that what once worked can’t always carry what God is doing now.
Jesus is gently pressing on something deeper than habit—He’s speaking to structure. The Pharisees were trying to fit a living, moving work of God into fixed expectations, old rhythms, familiar control. And it simply couldn’t hold.
There’s a personal edge to that.
It’s easy to ask God for something new—clarity, growth, direction—but much harder to release the structures we’ve grown comfortable with. Old patterns. Old assumptions. Even old ways of relating to Him that feel safe because they’re known.
But new work requires room.
Flexibility.
Surrender.
A willingness to be reshaped without fully controlling the outcome.
Sometimes the tension you feel isn’t resistance from God—it’s expansion. And the question isn’t just “What is God doing?” but also “Am I willing to be made new enough to hold it?”
Prayer
Lord, You are always doing something living and active, even when I can’t fully see it. Where I’ve grown rigid—comfortable in patterns that no longer fit—soften me. Give me the humility to release what I’ve outgrown, and the trust to receive what You are forming. Make my heart responsive, not resistant. Stretch me where You need to, but hold me steady in Your care. Let me not lose what You’re pouring because I’m holding too tightly to what used to be. Amen.
dad went to Cheatham in middle school though
