Contraction Before Expansion

Life has a rhythm to it. 

Think of the tide. It comes in, it goes out. We breathe in, we breathe out. 

Last year, God gave me a word I meditated on for months: Expansion. 

I was excited. I was energized. I naturally thought life was about to take off. 

So what happened? The opposite. Life got smaller. Way smaller. 

What did I do? Naturally, I fought against it. And life got harder. Way harder. 

What was the fruit? Externally, nothing was working. 

Internally, there was confusion. Depression. Frustration. Anger. Tension. Hyperactivity, followed by burnout. Etc, etc.

I had no language for it, until a friend spoke into it yesterday.

What I failed to realize was this simple but powerful principle: things must contract before they expand. As goes our seasons.

• King David spent years in a field tending sheep before becoming the King of Israel

  
  

• Nelson Mandella spent 27 years in prison before revolutionizing a nation 

  
  

• Steve Jobs was ousted from the company he founded and spent years in isolation before going back to Apple and changing the modern world.

Jesus said we can’t pour new wine into old wineskins. The wine will expand, the wineskin will contract, and the wineskin will burst, wasting both. 

In other words, we can’t take our new heart, our new ways of thinking, and pour them into our old systems.

We don’t predict or decide our seasons. That’s God’s job. Our role is ALIGNMENT 

This season you’re in? It’s not failure. You’re being prepared. Contraction. God is removing the masks and false identities you’ve lived in for years. The old wineskins.

Don’t fight it. Just align. Enjoy the ride. Breathe in, Breathe out. 

And prepare for Expansion.