The Soft Answer

"I,"  'ego," "self," always wants to defend itself. The most "natural" thing in the world is for our human nature to rise against the slightest attack made upon us. Self always wishes to take care of its own interests, its own reputation, and its own rightness. We frequently see the attempts of men to justify errors, simply because they themselves have originally committed them. To admit wrong is to wound ego.

Culture and education, and the good manners produced thereby, have formed certain patterns by which the most proud and selfish can go through life protecting ego at all vulnerable points, yielding only where politeness demands. The Christian learns that the Holy Spirit is at war with his ego, and that in order to be saved, ego has to admit that self is on its way to a Christless eternity. This is the essential reason why not many noble, not many wise are chosen (1 Cor. 1:26). The Christian learns that ego has to be crucified with Christ.

A friend told me something which happened several months before in one of our great cities. The friend lives in a very beautiful home in a lovely suburb, and when someone bought the next-door lot, a house was built very close to the property line. The new neighbors seemed arrogant and were definitely not Christians. Months passed by and the Christians, two women living alone, hardly saw their new neighbors who kept very much to themselves and their coterie of friends. Matters came to a crisis when the non-Christian neighbors sent a message through their butler to the ladies' gardener, informing them that their hymn singing and the barking of their watch dog was very annoying.

Here was a good occasion for ego to rise and defend itself, for the old nature stands upon its rights. Some people would have redoubled their noise, built spite fences, and carried on neighborhood warfare in defense of the wounded ego. The Christian described how the crisis was actually met. A letter, somewhat as follows, was written.

"Dear Neighbor: I am sorry that my dog has annoyed you, but we are two ladies who live here alone, and we have found it necessary to keep a dog since prowlers have recently been seen in the garden.

"When your dog barks we are glad that you have a good watch dog that is protecting you. When your little girl cries, and it sounds as if it is right outside our windows, we realize that every normal child cries, and we are glad that you have a precious little child in your home. When we are wakened early in the morning by the water running into your pool, we think what lovely times you will have in that pool, and we are glad. When we hear your beautiful music we are glad that you have such a medium of self-expression. When your guests' cars start under our bedroom windows at all hours of the night, we are glad that you have so many friends and can enjoy their fellowship. When your tennis balls fly onto our lawn we will continue to toss them back into your court, as we have done. But please never again ask us to stop our singing. We have had sorrow in this home deeper than most people could realize, and it takes the courage of song for us to continue."

The note was handed through the gardener to the butler and to the neighbors. It was a Christian answer which not only turned away wrath but caused non-Christians to more than respect the rights of others. It was only the spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ that could have made such an answer; the incident was praise to Him and a mouthful of dust to the enemy of our souls.

1. Can you think of a  time in which your neighbor mistreated you and you could have handled the confrontation with this type of manner?
2. How does the parable of the Good Samaritan teach us about treating our neighbor? Is it just a moral lesson, or is there more there for us to learn?