Walking
in our Neighbor's Moccasins
(Minute Meditation - May 2004)
There is an old Indian proverb that says we should not criticize our neighbor until we have walked a mile in his moccasins. The point is that only those who have experienced the same problems can understand fully what it is like. Only by walking in the other man’s moccasins can we understand his situation.
We may know the facts about what is happening to someone, but sometimes it does not sink in like it does when it happens to us. Many years ago our daughter married and moved away. Our family was forever changed, and while we were happy for her, we missed her terribly. A young brother in our meeting with small children knew about it, but it did not faze him. Some twenty odd years later his daughter grew up and also married and moved away. He came up to me one day and said, “I never realized what you were going through when your daughter left to move east until it happened to me.” We have to be in someone’s moccasins, so to speak, before we feel the impact of his loss.
We need to be compassionate, also to be touched with the feelings of other people’s infirmities. We need to care for and comfort others rather than sit back and criticize them. Jesus told us, “judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.” We may know the cold hard facts of what is happening to others, but we need to try to put ourselves in their moccasins and think of how we would feel if this were happening to us.
James tells us, “If a brother or sister is ill-clad and in lack of daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what does it profit?” What if we needed clothing and food? We can’t wear words or eat them. Talk is cheap. James tells us that we need to spring into action and do something to help alleviate the suffering of others. Think of what we would want someone to do for us if we were the ones in need—and then do it. If we truly loved our neighbor as much as we love ourselves, that would take care of the situation. The apostle John tells us, “Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.”
Our actions should show our love. Our love for our neighbor should be so great that we think more of his needs than we do of our own. Most do not do that today, which is the way it was in Paul’s day, too. He tells us about Timothy, saying, “I have no one else like Timothy, who takes a genuine interest in your welfare.”
Let’s all be Timothys and take a genuine interest in others. When we attempt to walk in their moccasins, we feel their pain, understand their fears and care about their needs. Let our acts of kindness show our compassion with “unfeigned love of the brethren,” fulfilling Peter’s words, “see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently.”
Robert J. Lloyd