“Seldom set foot in your neighbor’s house, Lest he become weary of you and hate you.”
Proverbs 25:17 NKJV
This is my fourth time reading through the entire Bible. There was also a time when I attempted to read through Proverbs, back in 2017. I do not remember if I got this far at that time, but I am sure I came across this chapter at least a fifth time as well at some point. This is the first time this verse stood out to me in all my times reading through Proverbs, especially in later Proverbs. Simply put, thanks to past experience, I actually agree with this verse. I don’t mind visiting people, but in the 14 1/2 year period between the very end of 2009 and the middle of 2024, last year when my wife and I married, the entirety of my living situation was spent under someone else’s roof, much of it undesired, and yet much of it necessary for survival purposes as it was either that or the street. I had no survival skills because no one had ever taught me, until about halfway through when God began to provide opportunities for me to learn a few things.
During this 14 1/2 year period I had three different living situations. The second one went alright as I was living with my dad, and our respective expectations of an ideal living situation for ourselves aligned quite well for us to coexist without too much trouble. But the first and third situations were terrible for very similar reasons: the owners put me up but didn’t outline any expectations for me, like timeline, or rent, or privacy. I had to stash my stuff elsewhere in both instances while living under these roofs. Over time, resentment grew in both situations, and it was as if they expected me to know what the expectations were without communicating with me. And of course there were plenty of day-to-day challenges that I won’t get into that ultimately strained my relationships with them either to the edge of repair, or perhaps even beyond it.
Bottom line, what these experiences ultimately taught me are that I have a very specific way I’m used to living. Except for what will bring me into alignment with God’s Word, or for pleasing my wife, I’m now at the point where I’m otherwise not interested in “correction” by people who don’t know or understand (or care to) my situation or my story. At the end of the day, it’s what made the first and third living situations as hard as they were, due to the unfortunate situation of being under someone else’s roof. I had to respect house rules, and I did so to the best of my ability. But there are reasons I don’t go back to visit often. I’m happy to let that stay in my past. Today, I’m satisfied with my own place, and I don’t ever plan to move back in under someone else’s roof under a similar type of setup. It’s not worth it. But it does go to prove Proverbs 25:17. Today, I’m quite satisfied to almost never visit other people in their houses.
“If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat; And if he is thirsty, give him water to drink; For so you will heap coals of fire on his head, And the Lord will reward you.”Proverbs 25:21-22 NKJV
Before I proceed, I cannot share without also mentioning this verse:
“But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”Matthew 5:44-45 NKJV
In both cases, a reward is promised. In the first case, doing good to one’s enemies in need (especially if they are God’s enemies also) leads to a reward of justice, for God is just. Additionally, God promises to reward directly the one who helps. In the second case, Jesus commands us to love our enemies, because after all, even our enemies have needs, and God will still take care of those needs, even if it’s just for a time.
The more I’ve been learning and growing in life, the more I realize how many enemies I actually made over the course of my life. There were many, many things I said and did that I know realize were wrong and very possibly (even likely) the cause of the end of that friendship or platonic acquaintanceship, but I had no clue at the time because I was completely in survival mode from my own traumas and was either never taught what to do or say to other people, or was taught incorrectly. Far too many years have now passed to assign anyone blame, including myself, because none of us knew what was really going on, and because far longer is the time now that has passed since I last lost touch with most of them, than the time that we were actually acquainted with each other at all.
I’m not in a place to actually put myself back in the presence of any of my enemies, let alone go out of my way to do anything for them physically (especially if my experience of them now or in the future were to remain the same as it was back then). But I can pray for them. And for many of them, I do pray. I declare forgiveness over them in Jesus’s name, and then ask God to forgive me. I ask God to do with them whatever He wishes, including blessing them if He wished.
Honestly, where I am now in terms of ever coming across any of them is that I pray for no reunions of any kind to happen. And I’m only in this place now because far too many times, I prayed concerning various different individuals (or groups) to have “just one more” reunion with them, in the hopes that, because I know I have changed over the years, they would see it too and we would finally have something closer to the connection that I had originally hoped for, if not quite that. At least it would have been better vs. the cold wars that I’ve so often experienced. After enough of those reunion attempts that ultimately backfired, as well as several others that never got off the ground (for example, for multiple years I’ve wanted to visit my college town again and visit some folks in the area, but over and over again I’ve not been able to make a trip due to different circumstances that came up), I eventually have to come to a decision: I’m done. I’m done trying to make reunions or reconnections work. If my life ends up being keeping in touch with the people currently in my life, and only meeting new people where appropriate, while also letting any further dropped connections remain dropped, then so be it.
After all, I have a life to live and a mission to fulfill. And that is to share about Jesus. But that starts at home and in the heart. People are more likely to be interested in knowing about Him if they see something in me, something in my personality and in my character that proves the truth and reality of His existence and His power.
“Whoever has no rule over his own spirit Is like a city broken down, without walls.”Proverbs 25:28 NKJV
Case in point. I’ve written enough today so I won’t comment on that verse, except to say that Proverbs 25:28 is what living in survival mode with trauma is like, and why it can take a long time to heal. But God is able. And He heals everything that is truly surrendered to Him, and He is sovereign over all.
No comments:
Post a Comment