Growing up, in fact up until pretty recently, loving my neighbor meant loving the 'pretty people'. I was supposed to love the little old lady next door, the family at my church, the kids in the neighborhood. It was always easy to love my neighbors, because my neighbors were well...loveable. It's funny how that works isn't it. It is only recently that I have come to realize and embrace the fact that my neighbors...are everyone. It's that guy who you locked your car doors for, it's the inmate in jail, it's the woman who made some bad choices along the way and is now paying the consequences. Everyone is your neighbor, so the question is, how do we practically love them like Jesus does.
The way that I have come to practically learn how to love my neighbor is through a very simple idea:
If you wouldn't say it about yourself,
don't say it so someone else...
If you wouldn't say it about someone else,
don't say it about yourself.
It's a very simple way to think about how to love your neighbor. I have found it to be a useful standard for how to treat others, and how to treat yourself. If you would want someone to grant you a kindness and grace in a situation, can't you lend that kindness to someone else. It's a practical twist on the golden rule. I mean, we were granted immeasurable grace by the creator of the universe, so I think we could all stand to extend just a fraction of that grace to those around us. This world and our neighborhood is broken and hurting. I believe that love is the greatest resource we have, and we need to use it. There is so much hate in this world, and in my opinion, it can't hurt to at least try spreading a little love.
One of the hardest parts of loving those around us is that many of our neighbors are difficult to love, and yet, we are called to love all of our neighbors. We have to love that little old lady around the corner....but we also have to love the criminal, we have to love the neighbor spewing hate from behind their computer screen. The man standing on the corner spewing hate from behind a picket sign is your neighbor too (I know, I know I don't like it any more that you do, but we have to love them anyways). We can't judge people based on how they appear. It's like this...you see a puppy and growling angry dog. It's obviously going to be so much easier to love the puppy. However, consider the fact that maybe the angry dog is protecting you from an intruder....and that adorable little guy just ate all the family photos (a high crime in the puppy community). My point is, is that the people that you have trouble loving, may not be who you think they are. We can't know them for sure until we get to know their story, and we can do that by listening to them. Listening to people, and truly seeing them how God sees them, that is the face of loving your neighbor. We don't have to approve of everything our neighbors do, we are never going to approve of everyone, but we have to show kindness to them anyways. This world has enough hatred and judgement in it already, it can't hurt to try treating others the way that we would want to be treated.
-Kayla H
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