Summer is coming to a close, which means fall is just around the corner. Fall means the weather gets a bit colder, the leaves start to change, and football gets underway. Wins and losses don’t matter until the actual season begins, but there is a purpose to the pre-season. That’s when teams finalize their roster and athletes train for the grueling season ahead. They are willing to endure pain and pay the price so that when the season does begin, they are ready to go. They run up hills and do exercises that stretch them in the pre-season all because the real season matters. Ultimately they are training in pain in the pre-season so that they can play through the pain in the actual season.
In the same way often times sowing is hard and painful like that of a pre-season. Why? Because actually reaping during the harvest season is going to be backbreaking labor. Sowing is hard because harvesting is harder, and we need that training. I believe we are on the verge of entering into a new season. So much of what we’ve been contending for and sowing into and watering will come to fruition, but currently we are in that pre-season time of preparation.
One of the themes God has been speaking to us has been about new wine and new wineskins. (If you haven’t listened to the sermon from our most recent gathering by Janet, go listen to it now!) I believe this message isn’t just for our team or our ministry or even our region, but for the body of Christ at large. Recently one of the ways God was speaking to me about wineskin was in regards to my prayer life. An old wineskin in this context represented my old routine of prayer and my prayer life of this past season. But in order to steward the new wine, which were the promises of God, it required a new capacity to pray. It will be stretching and even painful at times, but it was to pray like never before. I don’t want the promises I’m believing for in this next season to be bigger than my prayer life in the current season. And with that God started to stir my hunger to seek Him more.
This call to prayer isn’t about performance or religion, but a response to God’s invitation to deeper intimacy. It’s His grace that moves me to a “yes”. And I believe that invitation is going out to anyone who will heed its call for we are on the verge of a new season. I want to challenge anyone who is willing and wanting to join me in prayer for the month of September. Ask the Holy Spirit to show you what He is asking you to give up or do this month. Let’s press on together! Amen.