John 4

I'm reading John at the moment, im not sure why, i just felt compelled to. A couple of things have struck me so far but the one that has made me think the most is this

"Now, Jesus knew well from experience that a prophet is not respected in the place where he grew up. So when he arrived in Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, but only because they were impressed with what he had done in Jerusalem during the Passover Feast, not that they really had a clue about who he was or what he was up to."

Thats from The Message, KJV says -

"For Jesus himself testified, that a prophet hath no honour in his own country. Then when he was come into Galilee, the Galileans received him, having seen all the things that he did at Jerusalem at the feast: for they also went to the feast" John 4:44-45

How true is that? People who knew you when you were young have a hard time accepting that you've grown (something that has become very apparent since Eliot has had a growth spurt, everyone feels the need to tell him how little he used to be and how they cant believe how tall his got). They have an even harder time accepting that you've changed. A couple of months ago for a psychology self development course i was taking i had to get a selection of people to fill out some questions about my personality and then they were cross matched with my perceptions of myself. Some people who filled it out i have only know for the past five years or so, some have known me all my life. There was a stark contrast on one question that screwed up all of the data "Rate how confident you believe Sophie is on a scale of one to ten" Simple enough surely? The people that have known me five years or less gave me a score of around seven, the people who have known me since i was a child scored me on average two. Its quite likely that i was a 'two' when i was ... two, but few people who didnt know me at that age believed that.

Sure the Galileans have a whole lot more to get their heads around here, this guy that they knew when he was a kid is now performing all these miracles and saying he was sent from heaven and they're thinking 'wait wait wait, dont we know your mum and dad? arent your Josephs boy? and you expect us to believe this?'

I wonder if this is what makes it so hard for our families to accept that we know Jesus, when we didnt before, i know my family find it especially hard to accept the change and are angry really more than anything. But i get the sense that if i were to move to a new town where nobody knew me things would be a whole lot easier, and people would accept me from the start for who i am.