Bare with me
Yesterday afternoon I was riding around the Houston area fixing peoples cable issues (yes I work for the cable company I am not a rouge fix it guy like Robert De Nero in "Brazil" you should check it out (the movie that is)) Where was I?
Oh yea I was out working on people's cable issues and we pulled into this lower income area. Knock on the door, work on this nice lady's phone issue well we figured out we had to run a new cable from the tap (where your cable comes from)in her neighbors back yard because the one in her back yard is broken. She was very concerned about our safety entering the neighbors back yard (even though we have a right to be there). She also asked if the tap in her back yard was tampered with. I asked her why would that have happened? She said, "well my neighbors, they just mean!" she was concerned about the neighbors coming home and pulling a gun on us!
This morning (yes I am writing this at 0530 hours and woke up from a bad dream at 0300 hours) I am thinking to myself, "when we go out into the world what do our neighbors think about us?" Today are our neighbors thinking "I love how that person is always helping me out when I need it, I wonder why they offer to do that?" or are they thinking "well my neighbors, they just mean!" She thought that the neighbor would have cut her line or destroyed her tap out of spite!
Jesus said, To love our neighbor as yourself and then described to the Jewish people the lowest people they could imagine as their neighbor (the Samaritan).
Now I don't know the full story of this woman, she could just be paranoid or having a dispute with her neighbor.
I do know that as a christian I sometimes find myself making others meet my standards to be saved by the grace of God. I find myself cutting the lines to Jesus without even realizing it. Am I like the people that made my so unhappy at my childhood church that I left the church for 15 years? Do my neighbors say don't go into that yard! "They just mean!"?
From the ramblings of an insomniac.... I hope it makes sense tomorrow!
