Luke 5:37: And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined.

I saw the blue screen of death one too many times on my home PC. I thought of my new PC laptop at work and how annoyed I am at the length of time to boot up, the constant virus checking, the failure to work with the network. “It’s a new year,” I thought. I bought a Mac.

I got my new IMac home Friday night and took it out of the box. My PCs always came with multiple boxes and a thousand cables and peripherals to connect. My desk (where the old PC still sits) looks like the snake pit of Indiana Jones fame. My IMac has exactly one cord. The power cord. Camera, microphone, speakers are all built in. There is no tower to connect to the monitor...the whole system is in the monitor. Keyboard and mouse are wireless.

I plugged it in. It worked. It found my wireless network and instantly I was online. I still liked my old mouse better. I plugged it in to the new machine. It worked. No series of messages about finding and installing new hardware. It was just instantly ready to go. When I got my new PC laptop, it spent a full day retrieving 57 updates. Six updates on this...took about 20 minutes.

There is a learning curve...which is why SpiritWalkers is late. All the programs are completely different...from word processing to the audio program I use for the podcast...and it doesn’t seem that I have a program now for editing web pages. Still, however, I think it was the right move.

No, I am not getting a commission from Apple, but the switch seemed emblematic of our faith journey, especially as we move way too quickly from the celebrations of the New Year to the disciplines of Lent. Too often I have looked for new depth and insight in the same places that never gave it to me before. I never change anything about my habits...I stick with the old operating system and the brand I know...yet expect new and different results.

The change is challenging, as all change is. It has taken time to transfer files and it will be awhile before I completely adapt to the new programs and environment. Some ways of doing things I might have to abandon completely. But I no longer have to fear the blue screen of death. Or viruses. The new wineskin will not burst as the old wine in it ferments.

As we move into 2008, examine the operating system of your faith and the environment in which you work and live. Is it letting you grow and do new things? Or do you get the blue screen of death? Are you growing closer to God? Is your spirit thriving? If not, it might be time for a new wineskin. The old methods will produce the old results and the problems and aggravations of 2007 will move with you to 2008. But it can be different. Give it a whirl.

Give me courage, God, to pour my wine into a new skin.

SpiritWalkers is available in audio as a podcast. Visit www.annerobertson.com/poddevotions.html to subscribe or to listen online.

Be sure to check out my books: Blowing the Lid Off the God-Box and God’s Top 10: Blowing the Lid Off the Commandments. Order now on Amazon.com or check local bookstores.