No Other Commandment Is Greater Than These

I have a next-door neighbour who is, you could say, annoying. He is very controlling. I can't do a thing in my yard or house without his authorization or coming over to give me his expert advice. Since my husband is not around most of the time, I think he views me as incapable and inane — I have no idea where he gets that idea. Anyways, I hate being controlled by someone, so I try to avoid him as much as possible.

Then yesterday morning as I was writing my blog, this neighbour came to mind. God spoke to me and asked, "Do you love your neighbour?"

My initial response was, "Eew!" but I hoped God wasn't able to decipher that with His mind-reading skills.

I argued in my defence, "Yes, I have done everything in my power to please him! Even when he asked me to remove that compost box I had just placed in my backyard which cost two hundred dollars, I did."

However, my answer didn't seem to satisfy God, so He asked, "Do you want to see him go to hell?"

I said, "No! of course not!"

God said, "Then show him more love, and go out of your way, instead of avoiding him."

I was instantly sorry and repented. I told God sincerely that if He would give me the opportunities, I would do just that.

Well, God answered my prayer much sooner than I expected, because that afternoon a knock came to my front door. When I opened it, there stood a young teenage girl asking me if I wanted to buy cookie dough to pay for the construction of a new playground. As I imagined the kinds of ingredients that would be in the cookie dough, I responded politely, "No, I don't need any of that." However, interested in the project, I asked her where the playground was going to be constructed.

Expecting her to say Africa or someplace like that, she answered, "In this town."

Well, my interest was lost at that point. There must be at least twenty playgrounds in this town. Why would we need another? I responded, "Oh, well, good luck then. Bye."

As soon as I shut the door, God spoke again, "That's the man's daughter next door!"

"Really?" I didn't recognized her because I have never met her close up. Not only that, but at first she lived with her mother and only visited her father occasionally. Now she is living with her father, but has drastically changed in appearance.

I quickly reopened the door and called out to her by asking, rather intelligently, for all the neighbours to hear, "Are you the girl who lives next door?"

She smiled and said, "Yes."

I hurried over to her, my feet bare on the frozen concrete, so that I could ask her another intelligent question, this time a little more privately, "Can I just donate money?"

She looked at me perplexedly, hesitating she said, "Yeah . . . I guess so."

"OK!" I ran into the house, up the stairs, took out a twenty dollar bill from my purse, ran down the stairs, across the frozen concrete, gave her the money, and signed her sheet with a note stating I wouldn't be needing any cookie dough.

Now the girl looked at me weirdly, so I just smiled and told her to have a nice day!

"And you must love the Lord your God

with all your heart, all your soul,

all your mind, and all your strength.

The second is equally important:

'Love your neighbour as yourself.'

No other commandment is greater than these."

Mark 12:30-31 (NLT)

I only hope her father doesn't view me even more as a crazy female in constant need of his supervision.