I don’t know if I’ll be able to land this plane or not, but I just had a thought about the implications of a typical class of posts on NextDoor. We joined shortly after it started thinking it would be a good way to keep in touch with our neighbors. It could be, I guess, but it’s not used for that. It’s most useful function is helping folks reunite with their lost pets – I helped a neighbor find a runaway cat through NextDoor. Very helpful.

The main use of NextDoor seems to be to complain about whatever is being built. Most recently, folks found out there’s a Dairy Queen going in just north of our nearby KFC. Here are some of the early comments:

The railroad tracks may go through the West side, but the East side [where the Dairy Queen will be] can now claim the dubious distinction of being on the wrong side of the tracks.

I thought my boyfriend was the only one who cared!!!! It will bring him relief that someone else does not want a Dairy Queen “Treat” in Monument

Through years of reading posts on NextDoor, it doesn’t matter if it’s a proposed drug rehab facility, a new car wash, or, in this case, a Dairy Queen, a bunch of people will be against it. And they’ll make their position known early and often. It’s really the outrage that I’ve written about before.

It has just occurred to me that the problem is not that people tend to be against something new, but that they think that their opinion about something they can do nothing about matters.

Do Americans have an unhealthy need to control things? Or the misguided perception that we can have things the way we want them?

What if we said, “Oh, a Dairy Queen is going in on Jackson Creek Blvd. That’s interesting,” rather than “A Dairy Queen is going in. Am I for that or against it?” Permits have been approved. Construction is about to begin. I might as well have an opinion about the suitability of the sun rising in the east.

Believers need to be leading the way in contentment…

Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world… (Philippians 2.14, 15, ESV)

…and in not worrying about things outside our control…

LORD, my heart is not haughty, Nor my eyes lofty. Neither do I concern myself with great matters, Nor with things too profound for me. (Psalm 131.1, NKJV)

…and in not defaulting to outrage:

Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires. (James 1.19, 20, NLT)