Romans 15:2 Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up.

Recently my accountability partner posted a letter about how scriptures can convict us. Today I find myself experiencing that very thing.

I am not being a good neighbor. I have allowed our personal struggles to be an excuse to not be known to our new neighbors. We have been here just over 3 years and I don’t even know their names.

Dementia, heart disease and diabetes are not good reasons to be unfriendly. I wave and that is about the extent of my being neighborly. So I have to ask myself with all honesty why I don’t want to be known. This isn’t about them, it is about me.

It appears to me that I am using what we are going through as an excuse to keep people at a safe distance. They have lives of their own and they have not reached out to me either.

Is this where we are today, keeping our neighbors at a safe comfortable distance where we do not take the opportunity to be good.

What does it mean to be good?

Luke 18:19 And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.

Given that Jesus would not allow Himself to be called good, maybe being good is beyond me.

Maybe doing good is not the same as being good. Do I even know what is good for my neighbor since I don’t even know my neighbor?

Now this is my predicament. If the Word has convicted me, what am I going to do about it?

What is the difference between social conscience and conviction?

I reached out to my Vietnamese neighbor because I was in Vietnam in 1966 and 1967. I told her I hated the war and loved the people. Her response, “It is very different there now.” The getting to know each other better ended there. Did I use the wrong approach? I have a Purple Heart plate and am of an age to have served in Vietnam. I didn’t even get to know if he had any thoughts on those plates and what it meant.

Maybe I am out of practice in reaching out. That too is no excuse.