Sunday, March 25, 2012

Too Familiar?

I grew up in a house that had an amazing view of Puget Sound and the Olympic mountains.  One Sunday, my parents went out for a drive and came across a building lot at the top of a hill that looked out over this phenomenal view...and they fell in love.  Unfortunately, at the time, they were raising a young family on a teacher's salary and a view lot didn't exactly fit into their limited budget.

Eventually, they found a way to purchase the lot, but it was some time before they could afford to build a house on it.  When they finally did start building, my dad put in many hours of sweat equity to help keep the cost down.  It was a good, solid family home without a lot of frills.  But oh, that view!

From our living room window we watched tug boats pulling barges up and down the Sound and pleasure boats skipping through the glassy waters.  To the right, we could see the pale green Narrows Bridge stretching across the straits. And the Olympic Mountains' jagged silhouette framed the entire view.

But it was the sunsets that took your breath away! On clear evenings, a changing kaleidoscope of colors...reds, pinks, oranges...painted the mountains, water, and sky as the sun slowly made its way to the horizon.  And every night's light show was different! 

But the funny thing about all this beauty was that, seeing it every day, almost had a numbing effect on us. Sometimes we would walk by the window and barely notice the view at all.  It wasn't that we were totally oblivious to its beauty, but sometimes it took a REALLY spectacular sunset to make us stop and appreciate the beauty. 

Had the beauty become too familiar?  Did we simply take it for granted, because we had daily access to it?  Was our appreciation of it dimmed because it was part of our every day lives?

Unfortunately, I think that this is how we often respond to God if we have known him for a long time.  We take for granted His glory and majesty. We diminish the miracle of His love and forgiveness.  We lose sight of the wonder that the God of the universe desires a personal relationship with us!

Just because I have known God personally for a long time, I never want to be so familiar with Him that I become numb to who He truly is. I never want to just "walk by" and barely take notice of His beauty.  Instead, I always want Him to take my breath away!

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