Neighborly

Neighborly

If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well.

ROGER HEARD THAT one of his neighbors had taken ill. A dairy farmer himself, he knew the precarious situation his friend was in if he couldn’t take care of his herd of cattle. Two other neighbors along with Roger decided to split up the man’s herd amongst their three farms and care for the animals until the man got well. It took six weeks for him to recover before Roger and the other neighbors were able to return his herd to him.

Roger told me that if they hadn’t taken the neighbor’s herd, he would have had to send them all to slaughter. He would have lost not only his cattle but his livelihood. When I told him that it was pretty amazing that he would do that for a neighbor, Roger just smiled and shook his head. “That’s just what you do for one another,” he explained.

Roger and his wife, Staci, are the epitome of what it looks like to be a good neighbor. They are the first to offer you help when you need it. You never leave their farm without taking something with you, even if it’s just fresh eggs or meat from their freezer. They may not be wealthy, but they share everything they have with others.

Loving your neighbor is one of the core tenets of our faith. The only way to fully love God is to also love others. These two commands go hand in hand; you can’t have one without the other. It sounds simple enough, loving your neighbor, until you reach a place where loving someone else is inconvenient, sacrificial, or just plain hard.

But to fully love others, we need to know our neighbors and see their needs. Roger was able to help his neighbor because he already had a relationship with him—so when a need arose, he was one of the first to hear. We have to first ask ourselves, Do I even know my neighbors enough to love them?

Lord, help me to love my neighbors as I love myself. Give me the wisdom and courage to step in, even when it’s hard, and to love others well. Amen.

-Kendra

One Good Step: Be on the lookout for how you can step in and show love to a neighbor today.