My neighbor

My neighbor is moving. I didn't know him. I think I spoke to him about 2 times. One of which was "hi", and the other time was telling him that I was going to put in a fence. He wasn't too excited about that. He was very concerned that it was going to be put in the right place, and he warned me about 6 times about putting it on the easement. Then a couple of days later he brought over a diagram showing the easement and the lot layout. Not outright rude, but not anywhere close enough to friendly to be identifiable.

Here's the moral of the story. The guy is a Christian. I'm a Christian. Did either one of us do even a passable job of "loving our neighbor as ourselves"? I would have to say no. That is really a shame. I'm not a great neighbor, but I have had some really nice neighbors. My old neighbor Tim was as friendly a guy as you could hope to meet, and more than willing to help with anything I needed. It is to my shame that my neighbors can't say that about me, I only know two of them, and out of those, I only know the name of one. Granted, we've only lived there for a couple of years, but I have to say that getting to know my neighbors hasn't really been a priority for me.

I just hate to think that when and if we ever move, one of my neighbors will say, "well, I didn't really know the guy, but he was kind of a selfish jerk. And I know he was a Christian."

Lord, please help me with my shortcomings, help me to truly love others, so they can see your love living in me. And so that I may not bring shame upon the blessed name of Jesus Christ.