A Change - and horrible analogies.

"He told them this parable: "No one tears a patch from a new garment and sews it on an old one. If he does, he will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says, 'The old is better.'" "
- Luke 5:35-39

I'm sure quite a few of you - if not all of you - know this string of verses. It's about Jesus bringing something new (Christianity) into Judaism. But here, I'll offer you a horrible analogy of these verses.

Take yourself as a wineskin. You are an old wineskin, and in this new year, you feel brittle and about to break from all the bottled-up new wine in you. You can't adapt to the new school year, , or perhaps something life-changing occurred over the holidays and you're all muddled-up and squeamish inside. All this is making you uncomfortable and you feel on the verge of breaking down; but the tear in you is always, always there.
You try to change - to patch up yourself with the new cloth, but it doesn't match you, and only serves to enlarge the tear.

Or perhaps you are a new wineskin, but the wine in you is old. You're shrinking and shrinking (as new cloths do) and yet the old wine in you is not used up. Full to bursting. You're not quite sure what to do with the old wine in you. Maybe there are still loose-ends from last year that you need to tie up. Maybe you're finding it hard to let go of certain things - friendships, relationships, an indulgence? Maybe you're stuck in a bog; or slipping down a landslide; or crossroads away from God, with no idea how to get to Him.

So, now, how? Me, I'm a sort of mix between an old wineskin and a new wineskin. And I find it difficult to gradually become a new wineskin with new wine, but I'm working on it, with God's help(: He makes everything a whole lot better. Especially when He's there for me to bring my prayers to.

Just trust in God and know that he put every single thing in your life for a special reason. He has plans to prosper you and not to harm you. He will never give you difficulties that you can't overcome. At times when you're at your lowest, it may feel that God's not listening to you, that he doesn't care, but get this :

No matter how you are, awkward or looked-down-upon, God always accepts you. No matter how you feel inside, torn up and breaking down, God is always here for you. No matter how hard it is to let go or open up, God is always holding onto you.
He loves you. Forever.

"For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
- Romans 8:38-39

Be persuaded, too. Know it, believe it, live it. (:

trying to be someone you're not is a waste of the amazing person you are.

(And don't forgot about tomorrow's SALT session!)

(And feel free to point out wrong interpretations, spelling and grammatical errors, etc.etc.)

-eatingpaper

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