Who is my neighbor?

Have you noticed that kids are a lot more open to neighbors than most adults are? I remember our young kids becoming friends with Jake from down the street. Jake didn't have kids his age at home and he LOVED to play. He quickly became "best buds" with our three. Cathy and I met Jake's family, but "friends" would have been a stretch.

Jake seemed to spend most of his free hours at our house. Until... Until the day he showed up with head lice. (Are you scratching yet?) You see, we were okay with having Jake as a neighbor, but his head lice were a different story. Adding to the difficulty was that, while Jake's mom dutifully washed his hair with that lice-killing shampoo, she didn't pay much attention to the nits left behind. And, when it comes to head lice, you will go far before you find bigger nit-pickers than Cathy and me! That meant that Jake was subject to inspection at our house until his hair was completely free of all vermin evidence. And THAT meant that Jake showed up at our house for several days, only to be sent home after his humiliating examination.

Looking back, I'm pretty sure that we went way overboard in protecting our kids from Jake. No doubt he was clean before we pronounced him clean. But, like I said, kids are a lot more open to neighbors than most adults are. How can we break down our walls and become the type of neighbors Jesus described? That's our February topic as we study God's Word at Stone Ridge Church.

 

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