Bad Neighbor Bye Bye

I was depressed. I was at my whit's end. (It happens to pastors, too.) I couldn't take it any more. Here's why.

It wasn't that my next door neighbor played his music. It was that he played it so loud, so often, so selfishly (in disregard for the neighborhood). And he had this "box" thing ~ a "tube" is what my kids and I called it. It was off the back of a long bed truck ~ without the truck. It sat there in my neighbor's yard ~ about 40 feet long by 15 feet wide. He had a monster stereo system in it. It pointed at my house. It was like a bullhorn. (That's what it was!)

And that bass beat ~ I shudder just thinking about it. Thump, thump ~ thump, thump, thump. I couldn't drown it out. I couldn't shut it up. At 11 p.m. one night the police came to tell him to turn his music down. When they left, he turned it louder. There was a point where I dreaded even coming home.

One afternoon I prayed, "Lord, please have them move." And I'm not kidding. At the very moment I finished saying that last word, through my window I could hear my neighbor on his cell phone saying, "I can't believe my landlord is asking me to leave." When I told this story to a co-worker she said she had shivers go up and down her spine.

My neighbor's been gone for five years now. :)

(What demonic noise do you need have quieted in your life?)

"In my distress I called upon the Lord, And cried to my God for help; He heard my voice out of His temple, And my cry for help before Him came into His ears." (Psalm 18:6)

You might also be interested in:

• The Devil at the Door
• The Devil Next Door