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Forgiving others when they have done wrong to us is one thing. But bearing with them when they continue to trouble us is another level. We need both. "With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love" (Ep.4:2). If we can unpack this, we can learn a lot about the practical aspects of living with other people.

It starts with humility. A mistake we can make when we think of humility is to connect it with how we appear before people in terms of our external behaviour. But it is actually connected with what we think of ourselves in our mind. Isn't it possible to think of ourselves highly in our mind, look down on others and still behave humble in front of them? But the more we recognise where we stand in relation to God, we cannot help but have a humble opinion of ourselves. On one side we are conscious of our utter sinfulness and on the other we are taken up with God's unmerited favour towards us.

It is when we are humble that we become able to deal gently with others. The prouder we are, and the less we know about our actual position before God, we tend to be hard on others. Then we are quick to judge them, show no mercy, demand perfection from them etc. But when we know who we ourselves are, we cannot be hard on others. This is why Jesus said that if we are not willing to forgive others, our heavenly Father will not forgive us too (Mt.6:14,15). When we find it difficult to forgive others, it is an indication that we have not understood on what basis God forgives us.

It is when we realise how patient God is with us, while He continues to be long-suffering towards us, that we find it possible to be patient with others. When we mentally demand that the others should change immediately, we forget how long God has been waiting for us.

Sometimes forgiving another person can be very difficult for us. But let us imagine that finally we learnt how to do that. But then comes the next challenge to bear with him, and continue to bear with him as he continues to be the same in his attitude or behaviour towards us! This can appear to be too much for us! But we need to turn our eyes towards God and recognise how He has been bearing with us regarding every imperfection in our life! He has been not only forgiving, but also patient with us, and bearing with us as we have been taking a long time in our imperfections.

"Bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you" (Co.3:13). It is when we look at God dealing with us that we get help to deal with others in the same way. We have a tendency to forget this and focus our attention on others. Then we get worked up in our mind concerning the specks we can see in others' lives, while forgetting altogether the beams in our own life. Let us work on becoming more humble before God so that it can in turn affect our relationship with the others too.

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