"Your Neighbor" by Jeff West (from A Celebration of Disciplemaking by Ron Kincaid)
"You know me. I'm the fellow that takes care of your house when you go on vacation. Sometimes we cook out together on Saturday nights and the kids play in the yard. Our wives are good friends. They drink coffee together, trade recipes, and car pool the children. We talk together often about football and politics and inflation. We share a lot of the same ambitions and goals. Sometimes we share the same frustrations and disappointments. We are a lot alike you and me...But sometimes you seem to have more strength than I have.
On Sunday morning I may be in the yard watering the grass and you drive by with your family--all of you dressed in your Sunday best--and you wave at me. And I wave back knowing where you are going but not why.
Sometimes it seems that your life is different from mine. Our wives have talked about it, but you and I are scared to mention it. There is a lot about you that I don't know. There's an emptiness in my life--a void that I just can't seem to fill, no matter how hard I try. I need desperately to be answered, to be comforted, to know. And I need someone to tell me.
But we go on; and I don't mention it because some unknown fear prevents me and you don't mention it because some unknown power binds you. We laugh together; we joke; we share, but not the important things. Maybe someday. Maybe never.
I'm your neighbor, and I don't know Jesus."
Let us all not forget that some people are hoping someone will share with them the Good News of Jesus Christ.
"When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd." (Mark 6:34)
