Familiarity Breeds Contempt

We've all heard the phrase "familiarity breeds contempt" and if you are like me, you have always understood it to mean that the more we get to know another person, or the more familiar we become with them, the more in danger we are of despising them. I am experiencing another meaning of this phrase being played out in my life.

I confess that there are many aspects of life where I enjoy a certain "sameness". Yet while I resist change, I also delight in it. It is a strange paradigm in which I am trying to learn to live.

God is never changing, yet He is always new. There it is again, that paradigm. So here am I, this mere mortal who lived for over 20 years in the very same house, on the very same property, in the very same (and very small) town, went to the very same church (and the very first church I'd attended) all of those over 20 years. Take this same woman, and shake her up like a cup of dice in a game of Yahtzee and what do you get? A LOT of changes in a very short span of time. One would think that I would have gotten used to change in these past 5 years. But that is where it gets sticky. While I have loved the adventure and the excitement of all these changes, I find that I still have this deep-rooted expectation that things will somehow calm down now and remain the same....at least for a while. And I am confronted daily with the realization that this may not be the case.

So today I am thinking of the Israelites and all of their 40 years of desert wandering. And I am laughing at them because I see myself reflected in their plight. I understand now that maybe they weren't particularly "lost" in the desert, but perhaps more comfortable there and unwilling to leave! I realize that I am constantly trying to be comfortable in whatever place I find myself, and seldom do I desire to leave and move on toward my promised land. And how strange is that? Why would I rather be in a desert than in a land flowing with milk and honey? Because, as I have learned, I would rather be here in the familiar than venture into the unknown.

There is a price to pay going into the unknown. Everything is different. Nothing "feels" comfortable and familiar. And there it is. I want things how they are, I like comfortable....so that I don't have to think, or be on my toes, or awake, or present or aware....of God? Isn't that the danger? Is that perhaps why He continues to prod us on, to move us out into the unknown?

Remember, "familiarity breeds contempt." When we become too familiar with our circumstances or "life as we know it" we also tend to become "scornful".....or another meaning of contempt is "lack of respect or reverence" and oh my, that would not be a good thing at all. So while I confess to you that I often grow weary of all of this change, I am thankful that it keeps me clinging to the One who never changes, and as I cling to Him in reverence He sustains me....yes, even in the midst of all that is unfamiliar. His love never changes. And I am learning that is the only thing in this ever-changing life on which I can rely.