Neighbors

On Sunday I watched two videos on YouTube: 1.) "Evangelism: Send Me"--Conveys a strong message about evangelism in your own neighborhood. Evangilism in one's own sphere of influence, overcoming the fear of man, and reaching out to neighbors. 2.) "Get Service"--A video about focsing on self and discontentment so much that the main charecter fails to see the needs around him, by the grace of God, he begins to see that there are people around him who need what he has, the GOSPEL and someone to love and care for them.

After I watched the videos, conviction came over my heart about my relationship, or lack of one, with my neighbors. Just a couple hours after those thoughts, I was on a roll with cleaning the house, and when I went to take out the trash, I locked myself out of the house. Stuck outside, a small sweatshirt, jeans, shoes, no keys, no phone to call with, no numbers memorized, roomates all out-of-state accept for my one roomate who doesn't come home until 10pm on Sunday nights. "What should I do? Should I sit here and dedicate the next seven hours to praying? That sounds godly and I haven't been praying as much as I would have liked to lately. Sit on steps, begin to pray. Anxious, so I get up and look to see if there is a way to scale walls or climb onto my balcony to get the windows open. Then I realize, "No I just need to sit and pray for a while." I am praying and then I begin to laugh as I think about the videos I watched earlier in the day on serving your neighbors, how fitting that I got locked out when the convictions were still fresh. I start to get cold after an hour goes by, and then I hear laughing coming from my neighbor whose balcony faces mine. I can go over to their house, we say hellos in passing, we have taken them baked goods, then this fear comes over me. Fear of man. How am I going to explain this situation to them. The Spirit reminds me, and it all becomes simple. I was reminded that in suffering it is good to invite others into it after meeting with the Lord. Isolation is not good. So, I went over to their house knocked on the door and explained myself. Before I could finish explaining mysel they welcom me in. I got to spend seven hours at my neighbors` house, it was awesome. The grandma was visiting and I dont think I ever saw her without a beer in her hand. We watched movies, talked about family traditions, and laughed at the attention their dogs gave me, because I pet them. At one point the pug, named Sonny, fell asleep snooring on my foot. My affections for that dog grew so quickly, and I understood why they loved their dog so much. The man of the house is an actor and D.J., the wife a nurse, the son a swimmer in high school who can't get off of myspace, and just released a new album (he was excited about 57 downlods), and the daughter a middle school video game lover who still believes in Santa Clause. There is so much more to this family I am sure, and I hope to get to know them more. They were ready to fill up the air matress if i needed it. I feel like I can knock on their door if I ever need anything, or want to simply hang out.

On Friday, I was blessed to have a missionary over for dinner. There was one thing that she said that I thought was very insightful, "I was always trying to do the good work and be this missionary that serves the people, but the place where God has me I have seen that the people do not want to be the only ones served, but they also want to know how they can help you. When they are able to help you (the missionary) with something, it really helps to build the relationship, and for me it is really humbling." ...I felt like my time with my neighbors was like that. They were able to help me and provide hospitality, they provided shelter, and food. They were happy to do those things for me, we got to know eachother much better through it, and it was much better than me trying to handle it on my own, outside, by myself, prideful, and fearing man. If I had done the latter, I could see me convincing myself that it is the spiritual thing to do, "time with the Lord in prayer." Prayer is a good thing, time with the Lord the most important, but I think my neighbors really needed to have the experience of helping me, a person in need.

I am going to try to walk away with these applications...
~Invite others into struggles and trials
~Live in community with others
~Allow others to serve you when they offer and you have a need
~Stop fearing man, desiring comfort, and start considering others as more important than self