Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good. As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him—you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For in Scripture it says: "See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame."—1 Peter 2:1-6
We need to lighten up! Institutionalized religion has turned many of us into timid little souls. Some people seem to think of God in a similar way as they recall their grandmothers. Some may remember when they visited Grandma that they had to be extremely careful not to disturb the museum-like setting of what was erroneously called her "living room." As children, they weren't allowed to sit down, to touch anything, and they had to take great care not to break anything.
God's kingdom of heaven is not a grandmother's living room that's virtually roped off, to be used for viewing purposes only. Our relationship with God is more like sitting down at his kitchen table (which, to be fair to grandmothers, is a memorable, positive feature that many of us discovered in our relationship with Grandma). In God's kitchen, there's always something cooking, the smell of a pie or baked bread just out of the oven fills the room, and a freshly brewed pot of coffee beckons us.
