The Familiar Edge

The longer we stay around something, the easier it becomes to stop paying attention to it.

I learned this recently after picking up a kitchen knife I had used countless times before. I had used this knife for about 3 years; I knew its weight, its shape, and how it felt in my hands. Then one day, I picked it up as I always did and within moments, it cut me. 😭

The shock was that something so familiar had suddenly hurt me.

Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.

1 Corinthians 10:12 (KJV)

Later, I discovered the knife had just been sharpened. Actually, nothing was wrong with it — in fact, it was functioning exactly as it should. The problem was that I was handling a sharpened knife with the confidence I had developed when it was just okay.

That got me thinking about how familiarity works in our lives.

Sometimes we become so comfortable with certain things and people that we stop approaching them with the attention or respect they deserve. We assume we know and understand them, and conclude nothing has changed.

Take heed unto thyself…

1 Timothy 4:16 (KJV)

This can happen in our walk with God: We become familiar with church, with prayer, with worship, with His presence, with scriptures we have read over and over again. Just because we know the stories, the verses, we automatically assume we know what comes next.

The truth is familiarity has a way of quietly stealing our wonder. We begin to approach sacred things casually, not because we mean any disrespect, but because we have been around them for so long.

The people of Nazareth experienced this with Jesus.

Is not this the carpenter’s son?

Matthew 13:55 (KJV)

They were so familiar with Him that they struggled to recognize who He truly was. The very people who had the closest access to Him were the ones who overlooked Him the most. Familiarity had made them see only what they thought they knew.

I wonder how often we do the same. How often we rush through a Bible passage because we have read it before. How often we treat God’s presence as ordinary because it is available to us every day.

How often we stop listening carefully because we assume we already know what He is going to say.

Familiarity should never replace attentiveness. The knife taught me that. The cuts (yes, I had several cuts :(..) reminded me that things we think we have mastered still deserve our respect. Let’s stay humble enough to keep paying attention.

Be sober, be vigilant…

1 Peter 5:8 (KJV)

So maybe today is a good day to approach God with fresh eyes again. To read that familiar scripture a little slower, to pray with a little more intention, to listen a little more carefully and to interact with that person with a lot more reverence.

Some of the greatest things God wants to show us are often hidden behind the things we think we already know.

Shalom!