Are You Being Stretched!?

When I am feeling particularly stretched, I have to remind myself that I am a ‘wineskin.’ Jesus said you cannot put ‘new wine’ into an old ‘wineskin’—because as the wine ferments, it expands, and will rupture an old wineskin. Do you feel sometimes like you’re being stretched so thin you may explode?

Our English word ‘stretch’ is used in many idioms; I think you may find these helpful to remember when you are feeling over-extended. Do you ever feel like you are on an empty stretch of the highway or like you are on the last stretch of a race? Or conversely, maybe your circumstances are constraining you, and you feel like you are being squeezed into an airplane seat; being unable to stretch out is stretching your patience.

Then the word “stretcher” is also enlightening. Stretcher bars are used to tighten a canvas so the artist can draw or paint on it. Are we not God’s workmanship? Or a stretcher can be used to expand a leather shoe to make it fit better. Isn’t it God’s work to make us ‘fit’ for His purposes? Or a stretcher is used to transport sick people to a place where they can get healthy (think about that!).

Maybe you think I’m stretching a bit with these metaphors? So let me end with Paul’s use of the word. During his prison stretch, he wrote to the Philippians: “one thing I do: I forget what lies behind and I reach forward to what lies ahead…” (Philip. 3:14). The literal meaning of the word “reach” is “stretch.” Paul says “I am stretching forward.” Would it be a stretch for us to read into Paul’s words that stretching is normal, even necessary if we are to get what God wants us to have? Next time you start to picture yourself on one of those medieval stretcher racks, remember: you are a wineskin.