Beginning tomorrow I'm not putting things off any longer"?Īnd we try! But somehow tomorrow never quite comes … How many times have we said something like "I'm tired of procrastinating. Habits unchecked are stronger than conscious willpower every time. Only when we fully understand what is really going on at the level of unconscious behavior can we take control and bring willpower to bear. Trying to put the new wine of a trimmer body into the old wineskin of established and ingrained poor eating patterns cannot bring lasting results. … What most of us fail to do is address permanent changes in our eating habits. We can't get new results with old behaviors.įor example, one of the most common resolutions, and one that gets broken most often, has to do with weight control. We can't put new ideas into old mindsets. And so both the wine and the skin are lost. The activity of new wine will stress it beyond its ability to yield. The old wineskin has assumed a definite shape and is no longer pliable. To put fresh wine into an old wineskin, however, is asking for trouble. A fresh, pliable wineskin can absorb such expansion and slowly age-with the wine until the fermentation process is complete. It bubbles and expands as the fermentation gases are released. When wine is new, it is in a state of fermentation. The comparison is a very apt one when we think of the properties of wine and wineskins. You can't get new results with old behaviors." How to Avoid Exploding Wineskins In effect, he and his disciples were saying by their words and actions: "You can't put new ideas into old mind-sets. But, as a ritualistic religious practice, it belonged to the old paradigm that Jesus was trying to break through. It can be a beneficial, healthful practice, and I'm certain Jesus would have agreed. When asked why, Jesus made several mysterious responses, among them, "No one puts new wine into old wineskins: otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins: but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins" (Mark 2:22).įasting, of course, is not the issue that Jesus is addressing. Jesus took this opportunity to speak about what it means to really change from a consciousness of living by public ritual to a consciousness of authentic spiritual life. One day he was confronted with the question of fasting. The disciples of John the Baptist and the Pharisees fasted. He warned, "Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them" (Matthew 6:1). Jesus constantly challenged religious practices gone stale, their original meaning long forgotten and now become simply public ritual. Using the Three "R"s to Understand a Mysterious Teaching
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