Where is the Love?

Yesterday, our neighbors spent the day and well into the night blasting ethnic music. When it woke Steven and I up a little before 3:00 am, I tried to call in a noise complaint, but the police force was responding only to emergencies due to a lot of emergencies going on, so I would have had to call again in an hour. Steven instead went downstairs and asked them to turn the music down. The guy who answered the door very ungraciously agreed and told Steven to go away.

I just wonder what makes people so discourteous and unable to consider how their action effect others. I mean, we all do it--we're just humans. Some people are way worse than others, though.

It just makes me if that man calls himself a Christian, or a follower of any religion, personal belief, or world view that believes in showing love to people.  I don't know how people can say they follow something when they don't actually try to follow it.

The best person messes up sometimes; I'm not saying that someone has to be perfect 100% of the time in living the way they say they believe in living. I am saying that people should try. And we as Christians really need to understand that when we say we need to follow Christ, we need to actually follow him or we're not really who or what we say we are. Christ said to love others--so try to love people, even the ones that are hard to love, like my downstairs neighbors. It doesn't take much: you just have to be kind to people and follow the golden rule, even with the people that are hard to deal with. Christ said that suffering can be used to glory God and make you stronger--so don't complain bitterly, but have a positive attitude that this, too, will pass, and may even make you or someone close to you a better person for you having gone through it. Getting through the hard times with an "I can do it" attitude can be good for you no matter your belief system.

Following any belief or religion that includes loving fellow man and following a certain path--whether that's just the path of being a decent human being or the path of trying to follow Christ, or anything in between--is like a game of Simon Says or Follow the Leader. You have to actually follow it. You have to actually do what you're told to do (by scripture or by your conscience). It's not Simon Says to do something and you memorize it. Its not Follow the Leader in your heart but not in deed. Just do it!

There's always room to grow and the ability to be the type of person you say you believe in being. It very simple--do unto others as you would have them do unto you.