Squeezing the Grapes to Make the Wine

After a couple of weeks of broken water heater drama and a gas leak, my devotion on Monday, April 14 really spoke to me. Matthew 11:29 says "Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me." Jesus has truly revealed himself to me over the past couple of weeks, or perhaps tested me. Feeling like I failed, I realize again how God holds me in the palm of His hand and will always provide for me. Several days I worried about how I would pay for these unexpected problems. The disruptions they were causing to my routine life were more than enough to consume my thoughts. I struggled to remember not to ask the question "why"? In the back of my mind I wondered what God was trying to teach me through this, but I already knew. Trust me my child. I am in control. I will not leave you. Those words rang in my head and my heart, but I needed another lesson to solidify that promise that God has given me. Not so much on His end, but on my end. God is always faithful and He walks with us faithfully through hard times so that we may learn to trust in and lean on Him and only Him. Back to the devotion, I was convicted of my worry and doubt. But why worry and doubt? I am identified with Jesus...what can bring me down? Oswald Chambers put it like this. God uses burdens in our lives to squeeze the grapes and from that out comes the wine. We become stronger and we grow in Christ. Most people only see the wine, but "the proof that the peace and the light and the joy of God are there is proof that the burden is there too." We all face burdens, big and small, in our lives. But those burdens are what help us to grow into a fine creation of God's, one with Him and united with Him. "No power on earth or in hell can conquer the Spirit of God in a human spirit, it is an inner unconquerableness."