Imagine you’re walking down a path in a city park. It’s Saturday morning and two people are sitting on the bench ahead of you, a man and a woman. The man has his head buried in a newspaper and the woman is looking down at her smart phone. Passing by, you say hello and mention what a beautiful morning it is, striking up a conversation with them.
In the course of the conversation you realize that the man and the woman are husband and wife. The couple has been coming and sitting on that bench every Saturday morning for years. The husband reads his newspaper and the wife reads her smart phone.
Now consider: when you first saw this man and woman sitting on the park bench, him reading his newspaper and her reading her smart phone, it would have been normal to think they were unrelated; just two random people who happened to sit down on the bench at the same time.?
But knowing now that they are husband and wife changes everything. Even though they had been sitting on that bench engrossed in their reading and ignoring each other for the time being, they have an invisible bond that dramatically re-frames the entire picture. They are the exact same two individuals doing the exact same things. But they are connected to each other in an unseen bond of love.
Now picture in your mind your neighborhood block, condo or apartment complex. It’s normal to think of them as made up of individual dwellings that have no relationship with each other besides proximity.
But what if God used you to build relationships – personal relationships – in your neighborhood? What if you and your neighbors knew each other well, deeply respected each other, helped each other out with projects, and came to each other’s aid in emergencies? What if there were genuine affection and compassion – even love – that you and your neighbors felt for each other?
Your neighborhood would still look exactly the same, wouldn’t it?
But it wouldn’t be the same at all. It would be entirely different.
That is what God is calling each one of us as Christians to do for our neighborhoods.
Get the picture?
This post first appeared in NewCommandment.org.
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Learn how to form teams of men for every widow, single mom
and fatherless child in your church at NewCommandment.org.
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