Staring into the face of a six year old is just like looking into the future. This six year old was a strong, and confident boy, as he would throw the football across the fence dividing yards. He would shout out insults if the ball was dropped. His confidence shown through when he challenged the adults to play stating, "I could beat all of you at once." As my new friends and I grilled out I was invited into a scene that caused me to really think.
My new friends have decided to live their lives a bit differently. Instead of joining most of the people in exiting the city they have decided to become part of it. They have used what is probably one of the biggest decisions that we make, that is where to live, to move to a place that may be off limits to some of us. Do we think that God wants to be a part of our life decisions? Does this include the place that we may live?
As we talked about the family across the street a sad story was told. The parents of the kids are not there much. The only time that my friends heard the voices of the parents was to yell at the kids. Ruby Payne has done studies about this. Children in poverty rarely receive affirming words of encouragement. Those children that grow up with wealthy parents receive five forms of encouragement for every one prohibition. As my friends told stories about the parents it made me think of this. Shifting the blame to the parents is not what we are after. We should be after a way to bless this whole family. What better way then by simply being good neighbors to their kids?
Before I left for the evening, my friend stepped in from outside closing the door behind him. He had a mixed looked on his face. Mixed between joy and a bit of sadness. He said, "He told me that I was the nicest man he had ever met, he said he wants us to live here until he is a man." Would our neighbors kids say the same of us? What if we simply started blessing our neighbors again? Loving them not to convert them, just because that's what we should do. Let's spend time thinking about how we can bring some light into our neighborhoods. Even better let's spend some time finding where the light is already shining, even in the face of a six year old boy.
My new friends have decided to live their lives a bit differently. Instead of joining most of the people in exiting the city they have decided to become part of it. They have used what is probably one of the biggest decisions that we make, that is where to live, to move to a place that may be off limits to some of us. Do we think that God wants to be a part of our life decisions? Does this include the place that we may live?
As we talked about the family across the street a sad story was told. The parents of the kids are not there much. The only time that my friends heard the voices of the parents was to yell at the kids. Ruby Payne has done studies about this. Children in poverty rarely receive affirming words of encouragement. Those children that grow up with wealthy parents receive five forms of encouragement for every one prohibition. As my friends told stories about the parents it made me think of this. Shifting the blame to the parents is not what we are after. We should be after a way to bless this whole family. What better way then by simply being good neighbors to their kids?
Before I left for the evening, my friend stepped in from outside closing the door behind him. He had a mixed looked on his face. Mixed between joy and a bit of sadness. He said, "He told me that I was the nicest man he had ever met, he said he wants us to live here until he is a man." Would our neighbors kids say the same of us? What if we simply started blessing our neighbors again? Loving them not to convert them, just because that's what we should do. Let's spend time thinking about how we can bring some light into our neighborhoods. Even better let's spend some time finding where the light is already shining, even in the face of a six year old boy.
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