By the late spring, many eucalyptus trees across Australia have begun shedding their old bark. It peels away in strips and patches, revealing the fresh layer beneath. The old bark has served its purpose, protecting the tree through the seasons. Now it’s time to let it go and make room for new growth.
We humans aren’t always so good at letting go. We hold on to old habits, hurts, assumptions and ways of seeing ourselves, sometimes long after they’ve stopped serving us. We can mistake familiarity for security and struggle to imagine life without the things we’ve carried for so long.
Jesus spoke of putting new wine into new wineskins (Mark 2:22), reminding us that embracing God’s kingdom sometimes requires us to make room for something new. Paul takes this idea into our own lives, urging us to “put off your old self” and “put on the new self” (Ephesians 4:22–24). Following Jesus isn’t simply about adding something new to the life we already have. It’s about allowing God to transform us from within, letting go of old ways so that we can become something new.
Perhaps there’s something you’ve been holding on to that it’s time to release. Not everything from our past needs to be discarded, but neither does everything need to be carried into the future. Sometimes, like the eucalyptus, we need to shed an old layer to make room for new growth.
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