Familiarity VS Obedience

By: Jenifer Metzger

But if it doesn’t please you to worship the Lord,

choose for yourselves today: Which will you

worship—the gods your ancestors worshiped

beyond the Euphrates River or the gods of the

Amorites in whose land you are living? As for

me and my family, we will worship the Lord.

Joshua 24:15 CSB

Recently my husband had his glasses on his head while working on something and in frustration, he tossed his head back and the glasses landed lens down on the concrete. When we grabbed them to check the damage, hoping there was nothing there, there was the tiniest dot on each lens. Not a scratch or crack. A tiny dot. He immediately said he was done with the glasses, he just couldn't handle the dot in his vision. I laughed, "Haven't you seen my glasses!?" My glasses are so scratched up and scuffed up that it's actually ridiculous. And after taking a bad fall last year, the frames are slightly bent so they press into my head on one side.

After a few days of refusing to wear his glasses, yet not being able to see, we went to the eye doctor and ordered him a new pair. My husband asked me why I wasn't ordering glasses too, since my glasses are such a mess. I told him that I was good, I didn't need any.

The truth is, I have four other pair of glasses. All newer and better. All a more updated prescription. Frames perfectly shaped. Lenses without even the slightest blemish. Yet, even with all of these great options, I always wake up in the morning and choose my oldest, most beat up pair, the pair that is so beat up it does in fact mess with my vision. I really have no reason or excuse other than they are comfortable to me. Once in a while I put on a better pair, but after an hour or so, I always go back to the old ones.

Sometimes we are like that with sin. We know we shouldn't do something, yet comfort or familiarity always has us going back. We know our choice of music isn't uplifting or leading us closer to God, yet somehow we always turn it back on. We know gossip is wrong, yet when we get with the right person, it flows freely from our lips. We have that friend we know is a bad influence on us, yet we keep hanging out with them. We know we should be reaching for our Bible to spend some time with the Lord, yet we reach for our phone to doom-scroll yet again. We know we need to get up for church or we will be late or even just give up and stay home, yet the comfort of our bed draws us to stay put.

We let the familiar and the comfortable call to us even when we know there is something so much better for us. I know with one of my newer, better pair of glasses that I can see better -much better in fact- and won't feel the pressure on the side of my head from a bent frame. I know there is better. But I choose the comfort of my old glasses.

When I lay down these old glasses for a better pair, I can see more clearly. When we lay down the comfortable and familiar and choose the Father and His ways, we can see more clearly and we begin to grow in Him.

I am going to step away from comfort and put on my better glasses now...

Discussion:
1. Think of that thing you know you should avoid but always go back to out of comfort or familiarity.
2. What can you do to lay down the comfortable and familiar and choose God?