| Whatsoever
Things Are True
by Pastor Dan Coburn Anyway, the houses all had something in common. A Porch. Usually large, sometimes surrounding the house. With no TV or anything else to compete for their attention, folks would spend almost every evening on the porch, as a family, together. Can you imagine? Often, the neighbors would come over and share the porch. Sometimes, several neighbors. In those days, you would know the kids from eight houses down by name. They would play with your kids, and vice versa. You could and probably had corrected their kids. You could even correct your own without fear; (now there’s a novel idea). In the fifty’s, we traded the porch in on something different. A Patio. This was most likely in the back yard, and to keep ours secret from everyone else’s (even though they were all identical) we built fences. Now at last, we had our privacy, and anonymity. I was born in the fifty’s and as a child, we went often to the drive-in theater. There were many to choose from, and beside the screen and speakers, they all had one thing in common. The “PLAYGROUND” complete with a merry-go-round, teeter-totter, and swing set. The mothers would send their entire flock over to play while they watched the movie. I personally wore out many a pair of footsie-jammies in the gravel around the merry-go-round. Can you imagine anyone doing that today? Why is that out of the question? What has changed? Is there really more evil in the world today, or are we just less accountable to one another? Let’s turn the Spiritual Switch. 1st John 4:20 says “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?”. Maybe in the good old days, we got involved even when it wasn’t comfortable to do so. Maybe getting involved isn’t just helping the victim, but even confronting the bad guy. Maybe both of these are manifestations of Loving our Brother. Maybe we as a Godly society need to retreat from the Patio, and set up camp on the Front Porch. Invite the Neighbors. |
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