I sat with a neighbor in the lobby of the radiation wing of a nearby hospital. She was being treated for cancer, and it was her second of 25 treatments. Her nerves were jumpy; the waiting room, austere. Her fingers clutched the hospital gown — the one no one wants to have to wear. I was grateful to offer her the simple but sacred gift of presence. To pray for her and remind her of the goodness and presence of God in her life. To place my assuring hand on her shoulder. It is a privilege, after all, to be a good neighbor. To be a good friend.
The odd piece about this neighbor, now friend, is that we met in a fender bender. (I have no interest in ever meeting anyone this way again.) She is 20 years older than I am, and we don’t share a whole lot of common ground. We do, however, share the literal ground of our neighborhood. We have since gotten to know each other. We have listened to each other’s stories and shared meals together. She has gone to church with me a handful of times and graciously come to hear me teach at a local Bible study. My friends have met her, and they care for her as I do. She would say the blessing is hers, but the truth is, it is mine. It is ours.
God has unmistakably created us to live in community. Closely-knit, burden-bearing community. But we have this problem, don’t we? We are busy! We are so busy. We serve on church committees, our boss is blowing up our phone, the laundry pile is mounding, and the list of errands is never ending. How can we be a hospitable neighbor and a generous friend while living in this relentless swirl of activity and demands? A lot of us are just trying to hang on, after all.
Truth be told, before offering to take my neighbor to her appointment, I thought: I bet she feels good enough to drive herself. Maybe someone else will offer; I have plenty of work I need to get to. These are precisely the moments God reminds me what a premium He places on our relationships with our neighbors. While conventional wisdom says, You’ve got more important things to do; tell them you’ll try to get to them in a bit; put them off until you can’t any longer, the advice of Proverbs confounds us: “When it is in your power, don’t withhold good from the one to whom it belongs. Don’t say to your neighbor, ‘Go away! Come back later. I’ll give it tomorrow’ — when it is there with you” (Prov. 3:27-28).
I hear two things here: One, if you have the power to give, give it. Two, act sooner than later. There’s also an implied third — our neighbors are deeply important to God.
We will not easily solve our cultural problem of frenetic busyness. But we can change our mindset.
We can recognize that people are more important than most of what is pressing on our to-do lists. We can consider as divine appointments those who live to the left and right of our house, the ones above or below our apartment, the coworker who is not coping well in her difficult marriage. We can ask God if the person in the fender bender is someone we’re supposed to get to know.
Being hospitable begins with identifying who is around you. It recognizes that whoever is your neighbor is your neighbor. It requires simple friendliness versus the mad dash to the front door that keeps both parties from having to say hello. You may not have the capacity to make a meal for someone on your street in need, but you can stop to ask, “How are you doing?”, and linger for a meaningful answer. Or maybe you make sourdough in your downtime, and you can make an extra loaf for a family you hope to get to know. Maybe you hate to cook, but you can meet a coworker for coffee and offer the gift of your presence.
Last summer my garden exploded with eggplants. They were rotting faster than I could harvest them. Finally, I made it to the grocery store for the ingredients for eggplant Parmesan and made tin pan after tin pan. I divided portions and packaged them into to-go containers. A friend stopped by during my eggplant Parmesan escapade. I told her I would drop these meals off and be back in 15 minutes. I came back two hours later. Most everyone wanted to talk. One family had just lost their Golden Retriever to old age. Another had a sick child. Another came to the front stoop and chatted. Of all things, it was the prolific eggplant that catapulted me into neighborly hospitality, and I’ve never forgotten the lesson: We need one another.
We will never “have the time” to be a loving neighbor. It will only be when loving our neighbors becomes a priority that we realize the gift of the command. “The command to what?” you might ask. The command to love our neighbor as ourself, to be a friend to those whom God has put next to us.
It was a privilege to sit with my friend at her radiation appointment. She is a lovely person I never would have known had God not opened my eyes to my neighbor, to her. It’s a privilege to know the people on my street, to be there for them as I can, to value the relationships we have because God values them. You never know how even the smallest gesture can lift someone’s spirits. How asking if you can pray for a coworker might touch him in the deepest part of his pain. How inviting someone over for a bowl of soup or cup of coffee might just be what lightens her burden enough to get through the day. When it is in your power, don’t withhold the ride to the doctor. Don’t withhold the eggplant Parmesan.
This article by Kelly Minter originally appeared in the August 2025 edition of Mature Living Magazine.
The Way of Wisdom
Join Kelly Minter, Jen Wilkin, Ruth Chou Simons, Adrienne Camp, Elizabeth Woodson, and Courtney Doctor for The Way of Wisdom, an 8 session Bible study on the book of Proverbs. As you consider wisdom principles on everyday topics like your words, work, friendship, marriage, parenting, neighborliness, money management, leadership influence, and more, you’ll discover the wisdom of Proverbs as an invitation to steadily walk God’s way in God’s world.
