A preacher says, “It’s easy to avoid things in life that we should be dealing with. Instead of forgiving people who have done us wrong and moving on, we push the hurt down. Or maybe we need to apologize to someone, but that’s uncomfortable, so we keep putting it off. Perhaps a new door opens, and we know it’s a God-given opportunity, but we’re afraid and feel unqualified. Instead of confronting our fear or what’s uncomfortable, we run from it, even from God’s call.

“As long as you’re running away, you’re going to miss the greatness God put in you. You can’t conquer what you don’t confront. Too often we’re comforting what we should be confronting. We’re making lists of excuses. But you can’t run from everything that’s uncomfortable. You can’t ignore issues, sweep them under the rug, and think they’ll go away. When you get honest with yourself, when you confront what you know you need to deal with, it may be uncomfortable, but God gives you the grace, the strength, and the power to do what you couldn’t do on your own.”

We often need a new mindset. An old one holds us back. The old “wineskin” cracks. It is a new year. Let there be a new way.

You can’t have a new life with old thinking. If you think you’ve reached your limit, you have. If you think a problem is too big, it is. This is an “old wineskin,” we are reminded by him.

All you need is one touch of God’s favor.

But you must trust.

You must place trust in a “bank account” that in His right timing, the Lord will draw from.

Put trust in a new wineskin that can expand, that won’t break.

Bad medical report? Struggling in finances?

Take time to trust. Take time and stop racing around, like the proverbial chicken.

God can do anything at any time, and when it’s in His Plan, and we cooperate, when we’re not stuck in a negative routine, a rut, that negative frame of mind, He will.

“Trust Me by relinquishing control into My Hands. Let go, and recognize that I am God. This is My world: I made it and I control it. Yours is a responsive part of the litany of love. I search among My children for receptivity to Me. Nurture it with the light of My Presence.”

Open your “wineskin” to Him, your new wineskin, your larger wineskin, your more optimistic and hopeful and trustful cask.

The Lord, rebuke you, spirit of inertia. The Lord rebuke you, spirit of discouragement. The Lord rebuke you, spirit of negativity.

Race not past His Grace.

People are limited. God is unlimited.

A negative frame of mind is like a weak, faulty frame for a home.

Soon, problems arise. There are cracks in the plaster. There are creaks and groans in the floor. It heaves up in spots. The home is prone to damage during storms. It can even split apart, like that wineskin. Our lives can split apart when we don’t take time to pray and trust in that praying.

God has many, many unclaimed blessings for you.

You have to have a big enough “cup,” a big enough cask, for them to flow in, fill up, and pervade through your life.

[resources: books of inspiration]