In my neighborhood, which is a series of townhomes connected to each other (the kind where you can look out your bedroom window and see all your neighbors dirty laundry), because of the proximity of everyone there seems to be a lot of noise that comes out of nowhere and yet everywhere at the same time. Most of the time the noise occurs early in the morning (before I am desire to get up) and late in the evenings (when I want to be sleeping). Every weekend though, since everyone is at home, we have the benefit of listening to the weekend warrior toil away on their Do It Yourself Home Depot Project. This usually involves running table saws, grinders, blowers, and barking dogs at continuous periods throughout the day.
Now, I am not a "nap-taker". On occasion though I do like a little peace and quiet. It's usually at this time that Wally the Weekend Warrior departs from his lounging and fires up his grinder. This, in turn, signals every dog in the neighborhood to begin barking and yelping. Obviously they are threatened by Wally. Which, in turn, motivates random teenagers from all over Escondido to put down their Xboxes and decide to grab their skateboards and proceed to use my driveway as a half pipe. As a result of this, some overgrown teenagers see the teens, the dogs and Wally having so much fun that they begin to race their RC Cars in the former "tot lot" (which is a kids playground, at least until the geniuses behind the Homeowners decided to tear it down and leave it a dirt circle, ideal for RC Cars).
I am a Christian, and because I am a Christian, I pray. I was praying this morning and I got to the part about praying for people (#4) and I cleverly put a section saying that "I set my will to forgive...Parents, friends, etc." Well, then I got to the part that says "neighbors". I realized that I had unforgiveness against my neighbors and repented, asked for forgiveness. I tell you the truth the minute I did that my prayer time got 1000x better! Don't let unforgiveness bind YOU up. Set your will to forgive and you'll be much more joyful. And if you don't have a prayer card, pick one up and let God lead you everyday on His Highway of Holiness.
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