Familiarity

One evening I was on facebook and I was checking out old post that I had never gotten around to reading when I came across this quote that a friend of mine had posted.

 

I've never read it or even hear of the book but it was taken from "Enemies { From Within } Exposing the strongholds of negativity and familiarity" by Norman Willis and this is a quote from an Anonymous source.

"I came face to face with one of Satan's slyest agents, the agent of familiarity.

His goal is nothing less than to take what is most priceless to us and make it appear as most common. To say that this agent of familiarity breeds contempt is to let him off easy. Contempt is just one of his offspring. He also sires broken hearts, wasted hours and an insatiable desire for more.

He is an expert at robbing the sparkle and replacing it with the drab. He invented the yawn, he put the "hum" in "hum drum" and his strategy is deceptive. He won’t steal your salvation; he will just make you forget what it is like to be lost. You will grow accustomed to prayer, and therefore not pray. Worship will become commonplace; study will be optional. And with the passing of time, he will infiltrate your heart with boredom and cover the cross with dust so that you will be safely out if reach of change.

Nor will he steal your home from you. He will do something far worse. He will paint it with a coat of drabness. He will replace evening gowns with bathrobes, nights on the town with evenings on the recliner and romance with routine. He will scatter the dust of yesterday over the wedding pictures until they become a memory of another couple in another time.

He won’t take your children; he will just make you too busy to notice them. His whispers to procrastinate are seductive. There is always next summer to coach the team, next month to go to the lake, and next week to teach Johnny how to pray. He will make you forget that the faces around your table will soon be at tables of their own. Hence, stories will go unread, games will go un-played, hearts will go un-nurtured, and opportunities will go unnoticed all because the poison of the ordinary has deadened your senses to the magic of the moment. Before you know it the little face that brought tears to your eyes in the delivery room has become, perish the thought, common. And unless something changes, unless someone wakes you up, the common kid in your home could become the common stranger.

All because of familiarity.

It took the near drowning of our child to waken me. I had forgotten how important common things are. I'm forever grateful."