With all the news about illegal immigrants, ICE shootings and the evils of the Maduro Regime, we can get hornswoggled into forgetting what’s most important. Jesus says to love God and to love our neighbor. But all too often we do neither. We become so scared and angry about all the world events we can’t control. Yet in doing so, we miss out on the very things God says we can control!
Scripture shows us we are to grow where we are planted—to make the best of the people and resources around us, pray for our community, and care for those we interact with. We are also told that as much as it depends on us, we are to be at peace with one another. This means actively loving our neighbors, wherever and whoever they are. Yes, there are exceptions where you can’t be at peace with your neighbor. Sometimes, you must even call the police on your neighbor! However, hating our neighbor should never be the base line.
In this blog, I share a few personal examples of what loving your neighbor can look like, and how we can depend on Jesus to help us do so. Loving our neighbor isn’t always clean or neat—in fact, it’s often a real stretch that requires plenty of prayer beforehand.
My Story
A few months ago I lived in Roswell City Walk. A place full of pretty women where even their dogs were pretty! People smiled and said hello to me, and it felt right and good. Five years earlier, I moved there because I wanted to be around people who spoke English, were nice to look at, and where we were likely to have some things in common. This was fine for a while. However, for many reasons, I knew I had to move out. And so after lots of prayer, I finally did so in early October.
From City Walk, I moved 5 miles away into a 2 bedroom rental on the “wrong side” of GA 400. I liked it because it was cheaper, much more spacious and considerably closer to the highway. But there were major drawbacks as well. One of these was that very few of my neighbors spoke English. Also, everything looked a bit rattier, the people were messier, and it was rare to get a simple “hello”— or even a response to one.
So loving my neighbor was a serious challenge! But Jesus kept showing me it was possible. And from time to time, I would pray for an opening.
Loving the Property Managers As People: Looking Beyond My Immediate Need for Repairs
First there was loving the management, which at times seemed indifferent, callous and laboriously slow at fixing things. Indeed, I was posting maintenance requests in their portal almost every week!
But even as I got angry, I had to step back and look at this from God’s perspective. Scripture tells us to be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry. The reason is that we often jump to conclusions without processing the facts. In this case, I was getting angry because I thought management wasn’t taking my requests seriously.
But on reflection, I realized this was an old building from the 1980’s, the management had just acquired it, and the tenants were a rough and ready crowd causing lots of wear and tear. Indeed, as I learned earlier, the prior tenant in my apartment had actually burned the wall in the master bedroom when a trash can caught fire from their smoldering doobage. Before they left, the fire department had to poke a hole in this wall just to ensure nothing else was still burning!
With hundreds of tenants—many living tough lives and just trying to get by—there was little doubt that plenty of other property damage like this had occurred as well.
In my mind, the picture of an uncaring management began to change. The management I had once viewed as “indifferent” now seemed almost certainly overwhelmed, understaffed, and probably underpaid. The last thing I wanted to do was to walk into their office and give them an extra dose of my misery. But how to breach the barrier? How could I go beyond just being neutral and show them I care? This was uncomfortable for me because I still was pushing for the delayed repairs and just wanted them to do their jobs! I had to ask Jesus for guidance here. And it meant looking beyond my raw emotions, which was hard for me.
The Ice Breaker
In this case, the Lord showed me a way to connect which was fun and relatively easy. I already love shopping at the Dollar Tree. And so it was my pleasure to flood the management with huge bouncy light up balls, fluffy pom pom pens and toys that go “SQUISH!” Several times now, I’ve come in with a bag of toys and told them to pick one or two for themselves, a colleague or a child.
I did this simply because I like doing these things anyway. I certainly wasn’t trying to bribe them to be more responsive to me. But the results were good. Management warmed up when I started showing them I cared—even though we all knew I was still pressing them for more repairs.
Now, we smile at each other and are more like neighbors than landlord and tenant. A small gift can go a long way!
The Honking Ford Explorer-How Jesus Showed Me To Help My Neighbor Not Rage at Them
Recently, a honking car alarm kept me awake at random hours of the night. I soon discovered that the culprit was a white Ford Explorer parked nearby in the communty parking lot.
Inwardly, I raged: “Can’t these people even hear their own alarm? They’re waking up the whole neighborhood! How can they be so inconsiderate—or so careless—that they haven’t fixed it yet?”
But another neighbor opened my eyes with a simple comment. She told me that it’s very possible they don’t hear their own alarm: The car owner’s apartment could be on the other side of the building which faces the woods not the parking lot. This thought had never occurred to me.
Once again, I was reminded that the narrative in my head of a cold or inconsiderate neighbor could very well be a lie sent from the evil one. So I prayed what to do and asked Jesus to help me not immediately react. But it was challenging!
The next time it happened was around 5:50 am. But even as I fumed and got super angry, Jesus gave me an idea.
- Use AI to diagnose the potential reasons for the false alarms;
- Print out the solutions in a page or less; and
- Give them a large wad of cash to fix it—all in Jesus’ name!”
So I put this letter under the neighbor’s windshield wipers:
Dear neighbor.
“Your car alarm keeps going off at night and it’s waking everyone up. Here are some suggestions on what could be causing the problem. I’ve also included some cash. Hopefully you’ll have enough $ left over to know that JESUS LOVES YOU! ” (In the letter was a wad of large bills with a yellow sticky note saying JESUS LOVES YOU!)
——————-
For 2 days the car never moved (the note with the money still tucked under the windshield). It was likely they were using another car or on vacation. So I emailed management with the owner’s plates and suggested they contact the tenant to have them either disconnect the alarm, fix it or move their car to an isolated place. That day, the car was moved further back in the parking lot and I haven’t heard the alarm at night, which is a good thing.
How I Saw Jesus in This
Here, the amazing leap for me was to offer helpful suggestions to both the car owner and management — rather than scream and rant at them, which would just add to everyone’s burdens. And I was even able to help a neighbor financially! Whether they needed it or not was secondary. I believe Jesus was smiling: In a gentle way, I chose to be part of the solution not part of the problem.
The neighbor I don’t even know gets the money to fix their car, with extra cash and a note that Jesus loves them! If the problem occurs again (and it might), I can always press management to remove the vehicle from the parking lot.
“Tough love” for me is way too easy —it’s often my excuse to be extra tough and skimp on the love! But here the Lord wanted something different. He wanted me to show some real compassion. He wanted me to trust Him beyond my feelings. And in spite of myself, He then used me to do something I couldn’t imagine. He used a man of little love, to show his neighbors God’s amazing love.
I still don’t understand it all. I’m still trying to decompress. I may never know how this has changed my neighbors. But watching the Lord use me for compassion… and how He used me… I definitely want more of this! And so I can say beyond a doubt, that whatever He just did here, it was something good. It was something kind and it was something miraculous. And He’s definitely showing me some bizarre but Jesus filled ways to love my neighbor! Even if it didn’t change them, I can say for sure that it’s certainly changing me!
Other Christian-SOS Blogs
Love
Neighbors
Praise & Prayer Time
Blog Index
Jesus in the Shower