Loving others

This week has been hard, not physically but mentally and emotionally. My heart attitude wasn't one where I was overly focused on others, loving on them, taking the time to listen to them, to care for them. Have you ever known this struggle? It seems to creep up slowly with it's foot in the door of my heart and when I get tired, it slams the door hard in the faces of my "neighbors" and myself. My heart turns to stone almost, and when I try to pry that door open again, it's like turning your car over on a frigid early morning, gears grinding. Guys, the struggle to love others is real, and it's hard. But what did Jesus say is the second greatest commandment? "Love your neighbor as yourself."

Today at work, as a barrier, I plugged into my iPod and listened to podcasts by a church in Portland, I was introduced to this past summer while visiting a dear old friend on my journey to Montana from Alaska. Message after message was about relationships with others, close friends, actual neighbors, coworkers who are neighbors, strangers, everyone and anyone believers and unbelievers whom we come into contact. With each word compassionately being spoken into the earbud, I was being exposed. Faces of residents, family, friends, community members became present with a sting in my heart of mistreatment. Most of these "mistreatments" weren't said aloud to their face, if said aloud at all. But my friends, does the Lord not know our thoughts from afar? (read Psalm 139)

Love your neighbor as yourself.

what does that look like? what does that feel like?