"And no man puts new wine into old bottles; else the new wine will
burst the bottles, and the wine will run out."
Mark 2:22
The word habit is defined as a settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up. The idea behind the word pattern is very similar. It means the regular and repeated way in which something happens or is done.
Let's face it! We are all creatures of habit, and it is very likely that we have developed certain patterns in our lives that are hard to break. It's just the way of our nature to want to do things in a regulatory fashion because internally we like our comfort zones. If we face situations that take us out of what we determine to be familiar then our normal response is that we become a bit unsettled and sometimes our flesh wants to complain about it. Habits are fine as long as they are spiritually productive. It's when they become a trap or a roadblock to our growth and development that we have to re-examine why we do the things we do.
This re-examination applies to our thought life just as much as it does our activities. We can get just as locked into a thought pattern as we can a behavioral pattern. Doubt is a prime example. Some folks have built-in patterns of thought that simply question everything. It's not easy for them to think positive thoughts because they have grown accustomed to their own misgivings. Of course, much of that is based upon past experiences or a poor environment saturated with unbelief.
It is a proven fact that if everything around you is negative and cynical, then your thoughts will tend to gravitate toward your surroundings. That's one reason why you have to spend time meditating in the word of God. God's word is very positive and it is filled with hopeful expectations. But when you surround yourself with doubtful people or folks who always see the worse or talk about the negative side of things, then it can pull you into the trap of presuming the same thing. You might even find yourself one day questioning things that you have no proof to base your assumptions on all because of patterns of uncertainty becoming lodged in your thinking.
These are the kind of patterns we have to face up to and decide to break out of. Jesus taught a very simple truth about putting new wine into old wineskins. He was basically teaching us that the old cannot stretch to incorporate the new. It has to first be renewed. And that is where the problem lies. Old patterns resist change, and you cannot be renewed until you are willing to make those necessary changes.
If we want to step into something new and adventuresome in God, then the key to breaking out is to understand and recognize the need for change. What is the old cliché to defining insanity? It's doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results! If we want to experience change then we have to start thinking outside the box. We have to broaden our perspective. We have to rely on the Holy Spirit to turn on the searchlight and show us how we have become limited by patterns of thought and behavior keeping us from the possibilities God wants to take us into.
I remember years ago hearing a minister make the statement concerning folks who were talking about how they were waiting on God to do something when he heard the Lord tell him,
"They think they are waiting on me, but actually, I am waiting on them!" Could that be said of us? Have we become so accustomed to certain patterns of living that we are stuck thinking we are waiting on God when in reality he is waiting on us? I hope if that is the case, that this year we break out of those old places of containment and find a new and potentially powerful transformation that will bring us into revolutionary changes. Changes that will enable us to escape the revolving door syndrome where we are just spinning our wheels and going nowhere!
