... Do I Have To?

In yesterday’s comment section Steve raises an interesting thought: “What I'm finding is "my neighbor" is often the person I don't want to be neighborly to.” Ouch. That hurts in so many ways. I want to help my nice neighbors. I want to serve my rich, powerful, influential neighbors so I can get something back. I don’t want to get “dirty”. So, who are the neighbors that we don’t want to be neighborly to?

Here’s something that belongs in the be-careful-what-you-pray-for category, but also in the incredible-faith category. In the movie The Hiding Place, one scene portrays Corrie Ten Boom telling the Lord she wants him to use her in whatever way he pleases, even if it means in obscurity (or to neighbors I don’t want to go to). Soon after that, she is taken prisoner by the Nazis (definitely NOT good neighbors), along with her father, from whom she is separated. Her father dies in the death camp, and then she is forcibly removed from her beloved sister. The Nazis shove Corrie into a cold, damp cell in Germany (again, NOT neighborly). As the scene closes, she is lying in a corner, shivering. And with tear-filled eyes she whispers to the Lord, "But God, I didn't know I would have to be alone."

Ouch again. Help me, God, to go to my neighbors... all of them.