Neighbors can be a blessing or a curse. For the most part I've been blessed with decent neighbors. However, in one place I lived, I had a neighbor who wasn't very sensitive to her neighbors. It's not that she was obnoxious. It's that she had a some dogs that were out of control and she did nothing to control them.
Her adult children struggled with relationships and keeping jobs. So they would be in and out, staying with her for various periods of time. They would buy dogs and since they had no place to keep them, they would bring them to mom. Max, a mutt with some apparent German Shepherd mix, was an irritant. He didn't like staying in his own yard so he, on a daily basis, would dig out under the fence in her yard run around my back yard and eventually dig out under the fence in my yard. My girls were terrified and for years wouldn't play outside, especially the back yard because Max could be on the loose. I tried staking and tying down the fence, unsightly railroad ties to no avail.
As irritating as that was, Garth was a very energetic dalmatian. Hyper was an understatement. But, he had his days and nights mixed up. Every night he would sit in the corner of the fence next to my bedroom window and bark and howl at the moon and everything else all night long. When day break, he'd be quiet. He was so loud and obnoxious that my neighbors on the other side complained vigorously that he kept them awake. I tried everything to get that dog to shut up, but once again to no avail. I learned to sleep with two fans running in the room just to cover some of the noise.
Although my neighbor acknowledged the problem, she didn't do anything to resolve it. She just blamed it on her kids. I thought of a few solutions, like antifreeze and a twenty-two, but my wife wouldn't let me. Wouldn't that be great news, preacher gets arrested for poisoning or shooting elderly neighbors companion. So I did without sleep and my girls played in the house.
This Proverbs passage talks about being sensitive to your friends and neighbors. Nobody likes a loud or boisterous person first thing in the morning. It's too much to handle. Some people don't like anyone in the morning, at least until they have their coffee. But sensitivity goes beyond just being noisy. Obnoxious behavior drives people crazy any time of the day.
Why is it that the people we're closest to are the very people with whom we have the least manners or around whom we have the most obnoxious behavior? Why is it that people we are closest to we have the least sensitivity for? We are the least concerned about offending our own family than anyone. We say what's on our mind with little regard to the affect it has on our listeners. We show the least respect for members of our own household. Why is it we become the most selfish with the people we love the most?
God, I know I'm selfish. It's apparent in my home the most. Help me to be more sensitive to my wife, to consider her and her needs.
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