She is waiting...

Somewhere along this journey I have determined that I still am working through that second greatest commandment. I totally get the first one; love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. I see the metaphors, illustratives and imperatives.
But that second one is complicated.

Its seems much easier, at least in practice, to love the one who made you. There is a desire to please and prove. But when it comes to a neighbor, it seems harder to grasp the requirement to share, engage and commit to those with whom you have no direct connection.

I overheard someone say  over the weekend, "David and Angie Stewart Callahan have been reaching out to young people for nearly 30 years!" I was humbled by even the thought of that. Strangely, it made me stop and think again about "love your neighbor." It would seem the first way to love them is to reach to them. You have to go where they are... spatially,  physically, emotionally,  etc.

Contact is required to love our neighbor. It can't be avoided. You can't just drop things off at Goodwill or buy a pie at a bake sale and be truly "loving your neighbor." You have to be in it to win it so to speak! Pictures of little kids far away from your home who you send a few dollars to help is wonderful, but that struggling mother with multiple kids who lives two houses down is also (and more so) the neighbor whose life you have the greatest ability to impact with real effect and in real time!

We need to go find her... and she is closer than we can imagine. And she is waiting to believe... just as we once were...

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