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Pleasing Neighbors

             Each of us should please our neighbors for their good, to build them up. (Romans 15:2)

Reverse this as your consideration for today. What would please you for your good if your neighbor did it? The things that come to mind for me are that they would buy, read, and enjoy my books, be Christians, and have a mutual interest (gardening, photography, cooking/preserving… I suppose I could also list – not…making me listen to music I hate, using foul language, letting their pets wander off-lead or off-property, stealing, being abusive, or using pesticides/herbicides and not being upset about some of what I grow in my garden. I’ve no doubt I could continue to add to these lists. Another thing that I suppose would please me greatly is if they had a skill (or skills) that I don’t and were eager to either teach or help.

If I put those things on the exam table, it boils down to appreciating me or what I’ve done, having mutual interests, being generally polite, and not overly demanding. Have I mentioned any of your list, either in specifics or in the sauce (boiled down bits)?

Granted, there are people who are very demanding or toxic, but what my lists suggest to me is that, in general, pleasing our neighbors probably isn’t as tough as we think it is.

Using the same process, what could your neighbors do to build you up? In my case, they could speak well of me or something I’ve done, give good advice or ideas, let me know if there’s a problem instead of telling someone else, tell me the truth, pray for me, ask me for help or at least let me help, and politely not let me get away with things I do that are wrong.

And if I do these things to my neighbors? Do I do any of them? Are any of them particularly difficult? There’s one piece of this puzzle that is both the key, and the most difficult bit: paying attention to them or interacting with them. That’s where I have to being, especially since I’m getting new neighbors on both sides, and a couple more down the street.

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