Familiarity Breeding Contempt #5 /49 – Roaming Chaplain
In this 49-part series, I’m exploring what it means to be DEBT FREE—in body, mind, and spirit. The idea comes from an Old Testament law called the Year of Jubilee.
Before we get into the heart of it, let’s pause and reflect: how many areas of our lives have become soaked in contempt?
Relationships that once brought joy now feel like a slow-burning hell.
The job we once prayed for now weighs us down with grief.
Mystery fades, and what was once magical becomes mundane.
Familiarity has worn off the shine—and left behind a bitter taste.
When Jesus arrived on the scene, the world wasn’t far off from this state.
Rome was expanding.
Religion was booming.
Everything felt hollow and hopeless.
Then Jesus walked into the temple, read from Isaiah about the Day of Atonement—and boldly declared, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21, ESV).
That moment was a collision of heaven and earth.
The forgotten were finally being seen.
The wolves cloaked in leadership were being exposed.
It was Jubilee—a reset button for the soul of humanity.
God had come to declare Good News.
Let’s go back to the meaning of Jubilee in the Old Testament.
Every forty-nine years, a trumpet would sound.
1. Land was returned.
2. Slaves were set free.
3. Debts were cancelled.
4. Those stripped of identity, agency, and hope were restored.
But how do we find our own Jubilee, when the world keeps demanding payment?
1. Debts to loved ones we’ve disappointed.
2. Debts to our own conscience that we’ve violated.
3. Debts to society, always calling, always extracting.
Imagine a moment in your life—physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually—where you are completely DEBT FREE.
That’s the goal of this series: laying a foundation of forty-nine principles for living independently and indefinitely in God’s favour.
But it starts with one crucial step: acknowledging our debt.
In my simple yet heartfelt eBook, BLESSED – 8 Steps to Wholeness,
I titled this blog Familiarity Breeds Contempt for a reason.
As humans, we have a tendency to despise what becomes too familiar.
Take my opening blog #1 FELLOWSHIP as an example.
We began as a world wide network of broken but hopeful individuals, passionate about impacting our world.
But over time—through fatigue, success, and missteps—we started to turn on each other.
We formed cliques.
We gossiped.
We tried to control everything.
And slowly, we became what we had once promised not to be.
We became too familiar with the extraordinary.
We tried to bottle up God’s glory and market it like a product.
Instead of being awestruck, we became entitled.
Who do I blame?
1. No one.
2. We were all ignorant—each of us complicit.
Let’s get personal.
Why do so many marriages fail?
Why do families grow toxic?
Why do businesses that begin with vision end in greed and ruin?
Often, it’s the byproduct of overfamiliar relationships.
What begins in loyalty and unity can become a breeding ground for contempt.
I recall an incident with the head of an organisation I gave two decades of my life to—time, money, and heart.
One day, I was treated with such coldness, dismissed without any effort to follow the very biblical protocols the leadership preached.
As the leader he had become too familiar with his own success—and I, like many others, was now dispensable.
I don’t blame him.
His methods built a successful structure.
But along the way, people’s dignity was lost, and pain was dismissed.
And honestly?
I’ve done the same.
In business.
In relationships.
In ambition.
In winning.
But victory without reverence leads to emptiness. I’ve been there, and don’t intend on going back.
Over the last few years, God has graciously walked me back through those painful memories.
Moments where I took things—and people—for granted.
Especially those closest to me.
And I’ve returned to the place of Jubilee.
1. Every debt.
2. Every offense.
3. Every bitter thought.
4. Every deep fear.
All of it—I’ve laid it down at the feet of Jesus.
And in return?
I’ve found freedom to worship.
Freedom to rejoice.
Freedom to laugh, dance, shout, and sing.
Jesus is alive.
So, stop accumulating debt in your body, mind, and spirit.
Lay it all at the feet of Jesus.
Don’t be a victim.
Don’t be addicted to winning.
Instead, live in God’s favour.
Roaming Chaplain
