What the Fence Was For

Have you ever heard the old saying, "Good fences make good neighbors"? Boundaries keep things clear, where your rights end and mine begin. But we know how quickly a fence can change. A cow breaks through the barbed wire, and suddenly the fence becomes a ten-foot stone wall. What comes next is razor wire on top, and before long it is less a boundary and more a fortress. That might describe a truce or a ceasefire, but it is a long way from peacemaking. Those tendencies can slip into our marriages, families, workplaces, and churches faster than we would like.

James, the brother of Jesus, puts words to what starts growing when we avoid the harder work. He writes, "...if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth," James 3:14. Jealousy and ambition do not have to get loud before the walls go up. So what moves someone to step into that instead of backing away?

Desmond Tutu, the South African archbishop who helped end apartheid, showed us what that looks like. When South Africa could have torn itself apart with revenge, Tutu led a commission that insisted on truth over punishment, bringing victims and perpetrators into the same room. He wept as they testified, and once stepped between a mob and a man they were about to kill. Centuries earlier, a woman in Scripture named Abigail faced her own version of that moment. Her husband had insulted David, the future king of Israel, who was riding toward her household with four hundred armed men. She rode out alone to meet him, falling at his feet and saying, "...on me alone, my lord, be the guilt," 1 Samuel 25:24. That is what it looks like when peace costs you.

Tutu watched a nation find its way back from the edge. Abigail's wicked husband Nabal died soon after, and she became David's wife. In both stories, the peacemaker stepped into the heat of it and something changed because they did. Paul wrote, "...God reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation," 2 Corinthians 5:18.

We may never face an armed mob or a nation's grief, but we still face our own version of that choice every week. A relationship where distance has replaced honesty, or a conversation we keep rehearsing but never start. It hurts when restoration is no longer in reach. But building peace means trusting God even with what is now beyond our hands. Where have we been maintaining the fence instead of reaching across it? Could today be the day we start? Live it out.

Prayer

Father, give us courage to build where it would be easier to hide. Help us trust You with what remains. Amen.