It was our second date….
Everything she said was brilliant!
She was beautiful!
I was in total awe …
The server took away our plates.
We were at a dinner theater where they served the meal and presented the play in the same room.
The house lights dimmed and she turned her chair toward the stage.
Reluctantly I turned my chair….
How could I gaze at her beauty if I faced the stage?
I must have found a way. As we left she asked, “Did you see much of the play?”
“Uh, oh.” I thought. “She’ll never go out with me again.”
But she said “yes” to another date and then another and then many more…
One day I asked a different question. I asked her to marry me, and she said “yes” again.
Thirty seven years and a few days later, we were driving down a road near our house.
(My eyes, by the way, were focused steadily on the traffic ahead.)
Noticing a neighbor working in his yard, my wife said, “Well that’s… “
“Exactly”, I replied.
Sometimes we finish each other’s sentences, share a joke with just a look, or know what the other person wants without asking. (I mentioned in a recent post how my wife knew exactly what to buy for my birthday.)
We know each other. It’s familiarity.
The awe?
She’d think I was weird if I still spent every minute staring at her. But when I think about how much I love her after all these years, and what an amazing person she is, I am still in awe.
Can awe and familiarity reside together?
We all know that old saying…
Familiarity breeds contempt.
We know the Bible verse about Jesus being rejected when he returned to Nazareth…
Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home.” Mark 6:4
How can awe and familiarity reside together?
Love is the answer….
If familiarity comes from knowledge and knowledge from the mind, awe comes from love and love from the spirit.
Is this part of our earthly relationships a model for how we approach God?
How could we approach God with both familiarity and awe?
Approaching God with familiarity:
Our minds can become familiar with Him by studying his Word, learning about Him and walking with Him every day.
Our hearts can love Him more every day as we accept His love and realize what it cost Him to give us that love through His grace.
As Oswald Chambers said…
Awe is the condition of a man’s spirit realizing Who God is and what He has done for him personally. Our Lord emphasizes the attitude of a child; no attitude can express such solemn awe and familiarity as that of a child. Not Knowing Whither, 882 L
So perhaps we can approach God with awe and familiarity. Perhaps that’s part of what it mans to approach God like a child…
And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Mathew 18:3
