New Wine

Chandler, AZ  

September 23, 2018

New Wine  *a song by Hillsong Worship*

In the crushing, in the pressing, You are making new wine.

In the soil, I now surrender. You are breaking new ground

So I yield to You and to Your careful hand.

I trust You.  I don’t need to understand

Make me Your vessel, make me an offering, make me whatever You want me to be

I came here with nothing but all You have given me.

Jesus, bring new wine out of me

’cause where there is new wine, there is new power, there is new freedom.

How funny.  As I wrote the title for this, I thought I could have named it “New Whine” but not this time…

This week for the second time in less than a year, we lost the Celestial Blue beast, our Cadillac. This time, however,  it won’t be coming back. The twisting and grinding around an industrial light pole has taken it from us. “Not again”, my heart has been muttering, whine-fully, quietly, beneath my gratitude. Muttering until I stood to sing in church the very next Sunday.

We opened with the above song as my thoughts sling shotted to my Cadi. “In the crushing, in the pressing”, we sang and I could see the blue metal, the paint three quarters around the light pole, the significant crushing and pressing.   I could feel the soil of my discontent just under my gratitude. I began to sense the breaking of new ground as I could see His careful hand allowing the crushing of only the car, the driver unscathed. I could hear His voice in the words, asking me to yield; to trust; to forego understanding and to wait.

Asking me to wait for the new wine that, as He did at the Cana wedding, will be the better wine than all the rest.  His words promising me that in the waiting there is hope because where there is new wine, there is new power and new freedom.

I came here with nothing and You are making me something! Make me a vessel to carry Your hope.  Make my life an offering of gratitude. Make me whatever, whomever, You want me to be even when, especially when, it requires the pressing for new wine; the promise power, freedom. But, above all, Lord, thank you, beyond words for Your careful hand.

*Anne*