Familiarity Breads Contempt

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I was thinking about our most recent lesson at church in Bothell WA (God bless the Saints there). We were talking about relationships and how to improve them and the thought occurred to me if we are seeking to improve our relationships and the most important one is the one with our Heavenly Father then why don't we?

The answer came from the stake president when he said (and I'm paraphrasing here) We look upon the Messiah with love because he loved but the Father with fear as we think that he will judge harshly with us and demand only justice and Jesus has to be some buffer. Our Father loves us very much and we should really get to know Him and his Only Begotten. Our Father is really rooting for us and hoping for our success. That is why He has sent us so many gifts for our success.

I thought about that for a while and sometime later a instructor brought up the question of why we were harsh with our love ones and not our associates, friends and those further away in relation? I then brought up familiarity breeds contempt and we as humans fear that, in getting to know God, we might become contemptuous and reject him or begrudgingly obedient.

I thought about what I said. We tend to take advantage of our most precious relationships and for what? We think that they will always be true and faithful (so long as we don't screw it up) but we forget we cannot be just recessive in our behavior but outward and hard working to improve our relationship with others especially Jesus and our Father. A wise person once told me that we need to constantly improving our relationships and that means dating our wives. I am sure that it could also apply to our relationship with our parents, children friends and the Lord. The only thing that we have to fear is not familiarity but alienation of the Lord. I believe that the ole adage is true but it is up to the individual to change that in themselves. They can either fear to get to know God or they can get to know him at a deeper level and really reap a blessing and experience.

God help us all in our attempts to strengthen our vigor and tenacity to become the men and women that we want to become and really get to know the Lord and our families; strive to become who you were meant to be.