Overstaying Your Welcome

Just thumbing through the Bible, I came across, what I found to be a lovely verse of Scripture,

“Let your foot seldom be in your neighbor’s house, lest he become tired of you and hate you.”

(Proverbs 25:17 AMP)

The way Proverbs 25:17 is written in the Amplified Bible conjures up a picture in my mind of a grandmother or old-aunt talking to a carefree overzealous child, ever so eager to skip from one house to another in her neighbourhood. Actually, it’s reminiscent of my own mother, telling me, as a young girl, “You will over stay your welcome.”

I’m sure that some of you, if not all of you have been given similar or the very same advice. And clearly it was no different in the days of Solomon, who was offering wise counsel to his son. 

Spending an inordinate amount of time with a person or group of people is seldom a good thing. You must give people space, and also have times of solitude for yourself. It’s not that you aren’t to be neighbourly, just not excessively so, otherwise that neighbour will soon get fed up of you, even to the point of despising your visits. As the saying goes, “Familiarity breeds contempt”.

Looking beyond the obvious, we see that this verse is really about exercising self-control. Self-control is listed as one of the elements of the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 22:22-23). It is a character quality that God wants developed in us by His Holy Spirit. And something as seemingly simple as knowing how often to visit your neighbour, or how long to stay when you do visit, is a start in that direction. 

Self-control allows you to live a balanced life. Maintaining balance in every area of your life is important, and that includes your relationships with others. If there is a lack of self-control in one area of your life, chances are it is prevalent in other areas as well and this leaves you wide open and exposed to all manner of sinful desires because “A person without self-control is like a city with broken-down walls.”

(Proverbs 25:28 NLT)

Leaving yourself open like that gives the devil an advantage – he is scouring the earth for any “city with broken-down walls”. So, honestly examine your life, and if you find that you are lacking self-control in any area, pray that you, through the work which God’s presence within accomplishes, will increase in self-control (see 2 Peter 1:3-7) in every part of your life.

Amen†

Overstaying Your Welcome    Shelley Johnson 11-Jul-2016