Family Familiarity
Over the break I had a chance to visit with my family over Christmas, to go and spend a bit of time, meet the new family dog, help Dad set up a new computer, to hang out in the kitchen over breakfast. Whilst I was there I invited a good friend over to my parents place for dinner, a friend who had left Adelaide during the year and who I wanted to catch up with to see how she was going in a new city. I knew that it was going to be an interesting evening, both my friend and my parents are mature Christians with many years of walking with Jesus behind them and I was looking forward to seeing how my friend was going.
The thing that surprised me was that in a few short hours my friend was able to ask my parents some penetrating questions and hear stories about their lives that I had never heard before. There were stories about when they first met, stories about being called into full time ministry, stories told in depth in a way that I don’t remember hearing. I was surprised to say the least. How could someone who was meeting my dad for the first time and who had met my mum only a couple of times be getting them to tell them stuff I had never heard? How well did I know my parents? Why was this happening? Was there something wrong with the way I was relating?
I’ve written before about familiarity. The things that you become so used to that they lose their power to affect you. I’ve come to wonder what hidden depths there are in people all around me that I don’t know because I have become too familiar with them. I wonder how often I let day to day routine blind me to the intimacy that I could have if I just dug a little deeper for it. I come to wonder what hidden depths there are in God that I don’t see because I don’t take the time to know Him deeply enough.
