My life is being poured out as a part of the sacrifice and service I offer to God for your faith. Yet, I am filled with joy, and I share that joy with all of you.
Philippians 2:17
When God uses you, he pours you out like wine and he breaks you like bread. But what does all that mean? How can you become wine? How are you broken? Well, it’s really an amazing analogy. Wine is made from grapes, but before grapes can be drunk they have to be crushed, smooshed, turned to nothing but juice. Their former shape is destroyed, their very being translated from one essence to another. Have you ever felt crushed, squeezed out of all your energy, even your very being? Don’t be so quick to complain. It’s very normal for the God Girl to be crushed, but it’s for a very good purpose: so that she can be poured out as part of the sacrifice of service.
Okay, you can almost handle the idea of being broken by God, but what about when you are crushed by someone else? What then? Can you look at the crushing and still say, “Thank you for pouring me out, dear God”? Or do you buck against the torment and turn away from the strain? When you are being crushed by someone other than God, don’t start to wonder what you’re doing wrong, but think about how wine gets made. You can’t be poured out till you’ve been squeezed. So if you want to be turned from bitter grapes into beautiful wine, then you’ve got to accept the fingers that are squeezing you, even when they aren’t God’s. If God chooses to break you by letting you be squeezed and smooshed by life, then don’t start to worry that you’ve been forgotten or abandoned by God—quite the opposite is true. When the pressure comes, don’t sin because of it but stand in the face of it, and then you will be poured out as a part of sacrifice.