Your Familiar.

It's the familiar that you do and you fall back on.  Because the familiar is what we know.  So it's what we do.  How you were raised and shaped growing up.  All you've been through.  Everything that's happened to you.  All that's become familiar to you.  It's what you rely on, to know what to do, how to behave, and how to react.

That burst of anger to gain control, that persistent laugh to hide the pain, that constant pulling away to feel safe, that non-stop chatter to deter real discussions, that running to silence to avoid disapproval.

It's what's familiar to you.  So you do it.

And when all that's familiar to you haunts you and tags along beside you, causing you to do what you do not want to do, taking life away from you and leaving you with only death and fear, it feels like a jail cell, defining your boundaries, defining your time, defining you.  Your familiar does it.  And death is the result.

But, your familiar, you can choose.  You can.  You can decide what is your familiar.  For there really are only two options.  Life or death.  Christ or self.

And only where Christ is is there life.  Only in Christ, Whose death on the cross defined your great worth, is there victory over death.  Only in Christ is there freedom, for all eternity, from all boundaries of time and fear.

Yes, Christ is life!  Make Him your familiar!

Because when Christ is your familiar, then there is life.  He is the only way for you to have life abundantly, to experience the life He intended for you to have.  He is the only way to breathe life, for you to know and to see and to receive life.  Christ is the only way.  Becoming familiar with Christ, with Life, with the Only Way.

Familiar with His saving grace.  Familiar with His redeeming power, His abiding joy.  Familiar with His unfailing love, His abundant mercy.  Familiar with Him.

Only when you become familiar with Christ, will your familiar become to you, your life and your freedom, your light and your guard.  Right here, right now, and for all eternity.

Only then.

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"With my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments!" - Psalm 119:10

"I [Jesus] am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep." - John 10:14,15