Relationships and Friendships Require us to Leave a Lot of Things Alone

I was a boy on the hill above a farmhouse where folks were sitting on the front porch. I suddenly realized that I was sharing the path with a large black snake that had raised up and was looking my way. I hollered (That’s what we did before texting) at my uncle, “There’s a big snake up here.” His undisturbed response was, “Just, let it alone.” I stepped aside, and the snake laid back down and went its way. If I had taken a stick to it, I would have had a pretty good fight on my hands. We parted as friends that day.

“Let it alone,” those words were once spoken more often than we hear today. They were words of advice, and sometimes a command. On some occasions these were words of regret. I sat beside my cousin in North Carolina covered in red swollen place with snuff on them, (a remedy for beestings). We wished that we had left the hornet’s nest alone.

“Let sleeping dogs lie,” is the wisdom of the mountain. I wonder if Pilate wished that he had listened to his wife’s warning: “Let Him alone.”

“Leave it alone” is also a word of saving grace. A harmful word unspoken can be much more beneficial than the notorious “Piece of my mind” some like to speak. “Blessed are the meek.”

Pick at some things, and you will have an infection. “Leave it alone,” and it will heal. That can be true spiritually. Relationships and friendships require us to leave a lot of things alone because they are simply not worth the trouble they would create. We may never know some of the things in our lives that people have “left alone” because they loved us.

“Make me a channel of your peace
Where there is hatred let me bring your love
Where there is injury your pardon, Lord,
And where there’s doubt, true faith in you”