“No one tears a piece from a new cloak to patch an old one. Otherwise, he will tear the new and the piece from it will not match the old cloak. Likewise, no one pours new wine into old wineskins.” // Luke 5:36-37

Every mile down the highway took me farther away from all I had ever known. Every mile marked more distance between who I had been and who I was choosing to become. 

I understood that the eight-hour drive to the Catholic university I providentially stumbled upon during my junior year of high school was actually a chasm separating my old life from my new life. At this place, there would be no more need for duplicity of life, no room for masks. 

If I were to truly give my entire life to Christ, it would change everything. No longer would I patch pieces of old cloaks—old me—together in an attempt to follow both God and the world. On the contrary, I would be given a new cloak that no longer matched the old. 

Our mile-marker conversions are often as such. There is a before and after, an old and new. When Jesus calls us into deeper intimacy and greater holiness, the old cloaks no longer fit. We cannot take pieces from the new cloak and try to make them fit with the old. It simply will not work.

When He calls us to a new way, patching doesn’t suffice. Discontent grows and internal battles rage. But if we “turn from evil and do good” (Psalm 37:27), there is no longer need for duplicity. No masks. Only in the new, whole cloak will we “take delight in the Lord” (Psalm 37:4). 

If you are staring down a highway on conversion, counting the cost and considering what will be left behind, I’d love to encourage you forward. Your patched, old cloak is no longer working. Instead, step out in faith and be clothed by the Holy Spirit, Who covers you in wholeness, peace, and new life.