You May Not Ignore It

"You shall not see your brother's ox or his sheep going astray and ignore them.
You shall take them back to your brother. And if he does not live near you and
you do not know who he is, you shall bring it home to your house, and it shall
stay with you until your brother seeks it. Then you shall restore it to him. And
you shall do the same with his donkey or with his garment, or with any lost
thing of your brother's, which he loses and you find; you may not ignore it. You
shall not see your brother's donkey or his ox fallen down by the way and ignore
them. You shall help him to lift them up again." -Deu 22:1-4

This passage speaks quite straightforwardly to one aspect of loving a neighbor. It specifically addresses a common (at least in my life) sin of omission. I think this is quite common in our individualistic culture. I worry about my stuff, and let others worry about theirs. I was planning on relating this to how we're supposed to not just let our neighbors walk blindly into Hell...but we know that. And I have a much more directly applicable story.

I recall the time I was driving down the street, and off in the yards to my left was this dog just running crazy--like he had just escaped. Then about 2 houses down on the right, I saw a man, holding an empty leash, clearly looking for his dog. It wouldn't have been hard to roll down my window when I stopped at the stop sign right where he was standing...I even have power windows! But of course, being the lazy, selfish, sinful, "I can't spare 10 seconds" man that I am, I proceeded to roll through the stop sign and go on my merry way. When my dog runs away, wouldn't I like to have somebody at least point me in the right direction? Wasn't I incredibly thankful when my dog did run away, that some nice neighbors picked her up, looked at her tag, and drove her to my house?