More Tolerant of Infirmity

I’m deep into a second day of prayerful research and study to prep for AmazingGrace360. Oh! How I am thanking God that the clouds are beginning to lift a bit and my fuzzy brain is starting to (slowly) engage. I’m sure a great deal of my progress is due to simple encouragement—I am encouraged as I read and re-read great books like Relationships: A Mess Worth Making, Reclaiming Friendship: Relating to Each Other in a Frenzied World, and Life Together.

I’m also encouraged to go back and linger a bit over sermons and messages from people I truly respect. It’s one thing to zip through headlines or pop into a blog or two. It’s another thing entirely to really slow down. Think. Pray. Ponder. And ask God for wisdom re: potential application to the topics I am prepping.

I am particularly enjoying a number of articles and messages from one of my real-life heroes in the faith: Carolyn McCulley. If you haven’t yet read her book, Radical Womanhood: Feminine Faith in a Feminist World, I urge you to do so. It is excellent.

But today I was particularly blessed by a message she gave at a True Woman Conference back in 2010:

He Loves Me / He Loves Me Not (Looking at Love from the Bible’s Perspective)

This is not just a message for single people, this is a message for the church and I encourage you to either read it or click back a page and listen to it. Towards the end, she quotes Charles Spurgeon and that’s what I’ll use you tempt you to click through to the entire piece:

“As we grow in grace, we are sure to grow in charity, sympathy, and love. We shall, as we ripen in grace, have greater sweetness toward our fellow Christians. Bitter-spirited Christians may know a great deal, but they are immature. Those who are quick to sensor may be very cute in judgment, but they are as yet very immature in heart.

He who grows in grace remembers that he is but dust and he, therefore, does not expect his fellow Christians to be anything more. He overlooks 10,000 of their faults because he knows his God overlooks 20,000 in his own case. He does not expect perfection in the creature and, therefore, he is not disappointed when he does not find it.

When our virtues become more mature, we shall not be more tolerant of evil, but we shall be more tolerant of infirmity, more hopeful for the people of God, and certainly less arrogant in our criticisms.”

Amen & Amen!

Oh, how I am praying that this very day I will overlook faults, not expect perfection in others, and be far more tolerant of infirmity … all because I am confident in Christ and thus, hopeful for the people of God.

Blessings to you,
Tara B.

PS
Thanks again, Carolyn, for your ministry for the Lord and His Bride! We appreciate you very much!