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Is this a common practice in your home? Do you encourage your household to seek and to love your neighbors? If not, you’ve come to the right place. I can guarantee you that this was not the case for us a few years ago. We would acknowledge our neighbors and be ‘neighborly‘ to them, but not in the way that the Lord has asked us to love our neighbors. The Lord truly gave me a new and softened heart for our neighbors just in this last year.
I won’t tell you too much about our neighbors because I want to protect their privacy and life, but we know 3 of our neighbors in our apartment complex. So much so, that we give each other gifts on birthdays and holidays and help one another with each others’ kids.
Since moving to Texas in 2021, there are a few ways we’ve discovered to love our neighbors and our kids have been a part of that. I wanted to share with you the ways in which we have brought our kids along in the process of loving our next door neighbors.
OFFER PRACTICAL HELP
This can be literally anything, y’all. From helping grab their mail when they’re out of town to helping them solve a problem with their car. The sky’s the limit! This is also where you can begin to pray for specific and visible needs, if you can’t identify one right away. I would also encourage you to have your kids pray this prayer with you. Tell them to have listening ears when your neighbor speaks and to watch if they need help.
Honestly, sometimes, we see others and we don’t know how to help them, we know we should, but the need is not obvious just yet. This was true for us and I began praying and asking the Lord to reveal specific needs for us to serve our neighbor.
EXAMPLE:
One day, the girls and I were outside playing in the front of our apartment and my neighbor and I were visiting. They mentioned that their son had to leave to go to school early to print his homework off because they didn’t have a printer at the time.
I brought the girls back inside and mentioned to them that we were going to help this neighbor get a printer. My sweet oldest daughter asked, “Why mommy?” The simple answer is because they needed help, but also because God commands us to love our neighbor as ourselves. If we love ourselves, then that’s how much we should love our neighbor.
I mentioned this need to my husband and he actually found a printer from someone at work! It was the perfect way to show the girls how we can practically help. And y’all, when we do give to our neighbors, we do it with wisdom and not foolishly giving however WE feel like giving. We want to be helpful and provide for a specific need.
BAKE AND COOK FOR THEM
In the past few years, I’ve really stepped up my baking and cooking game since I’ve been able to be home with the girls. Now, I’ve got a few things down, so I don’t feel as shy to share my cooking.
My oldest and I love baking all the starchy things like cookies, muffins, & bread. We started doubling our recipes so I could bring some to Bible study, but I would still come home with leftovers. This is how we started sharing with our neighbor. It got to the point that every time we baked something, my girls would ask, “Can we share this with the neighbor?” I mean, that’s it right there. It’s becoming ingrained in them to think and share with their neighbors!
I think we can over complicate and overthink serving our neighbors, but it can be so simple. Fresh food or baked goods are the easiest way, for me personally, to love our neighbor right now.
I love this quote from, The Gospel Comes with a House Key
The Gospel comes with a house key. If it doesn’t, you are only living half the Gospel.
Rosaria Butterfield
Listen, the Lord gives us our homes, food, warmth, decoration, books, etc. to overflow to share with others. Think about it, if we are to be good stewards of our homes, it must involve our next door neighbors.
PRAY FOR THEM
I’ll shamelessly promote my previous blog post for a second. I mentioned that my family uses prayer sticks to help us practice different formats of prayer. Check my blog post, Teaching Kids to Pray, for how we practice prayer with our kids!
Moving on, one of our prayer sticks has our neighbor’s name on it. This helps us remember and to continue to pray for them. We tell the kids how to pray for them and here’s what we pray:
We pray for salvation for them and their children, we pray for the Lord to soften their hearts to the Gospel, & we pray for opportunities and courage for us to serve and build relationships with them.
You can bring your children along in this process of prayer for them. My daughter asks quite often, “Why do we keep praying for them?” My answer is, because we want them to know Jesus and this is how we love them. We’re called to do this, sweet friends!
INVITE THEM IN
Honestly, this is a TOUGH one for me right now. I have 3 girls, 4 and under, and it’s hard for me to get people in my home without something or someone being hard to deal with. I’m slowly, but surely getting people back in.
Anyway, this is a great opportunity to practice what I preach, right? Keep everything simple and be willing to share my messy home with our neighbor. It’s an even better situation if your neighbor is invited into your messy home. It pushes past the entertainment idea that everything & everyone must be in order.
EXAMPLE:
Last year during the Spring time, I had a pile of boxes by the door waiting to be thrown out and there were crumbs on my rug from the girls walking around eating snacks like animals. Our neighbor & her daughter knocked on the door and asked to borrow something, so naturally I left the door open. After they left, the neighbor messaged me and said, “My daughter loves how cozy your home is.” Y’all, all I could see was the disgust, but all she could see was comfort.
We have no idea what our neighbors see or think. It’s not our job to please them, but to please the Lord by obeying His commands and opening our home. The Lord uses our our homes, no matter the conditions, for His glory.
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What are some ways you teach your children about loving their neighbors? Please share in the comments!
