When someone does something wrong

Who among us has not made a mistake? I’ve made plenty. How grateful I’ve been for individuals who had patience with me and let me learn from those mistakes.

The Bible teaches forbearance, or patient restraint in the face of another’s moral lapse, as a means of giving him the mental space to learn some needed lesson.

Some of the most effective biblical leaders had to overcome temptations and misdeeds in order to learn the spiritual lessons necessary to fulfill their healing missions. For example, Moses killed a man; Peter abandoned Jesus at the crucifixion; and Paul persecuted Christians before his conversion. What if they had never been given the opportunity to learn and grow?

Practicing forbearance not only benefits others but is also key to our own freedom. Jesus shared a parable about an unmerciful debtor who is not willing to show the same forbearance to others that he has received himself. Eventually this man’s hypocrisy lands him in prison with a mountain of debt (see Matthew 18:23-35). The parable speaks to one of the lines in the Lord’s Prayer: “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors” (Matthew 6:12).

Forbearance is necessary for everyone to both give and receive if we are to find individual and collective peace, stability, and well-being. The good news is that each of us has the natural capacity to express patience and grace as a child of God – as the spiritual reflection of God’s being. Christ, God’s ever-active impartation of Truth to human consciousness, lifts us to see our spiritual nature as the expression of divine Love, or God. This spiritual nature includes forbearance.

Jesus’ parable teaches that we should be as generous as possible with one another in practicing forbearance. Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer of Christian Science, writes, “It is wise to be willing to wait on God, and to be wiser than serpents; to hate no man, to love one’s enemies, and to square accounts with each passing hour” (“Message to The Mother Church for 1902,” p. 17).

The opposite of forbearance – impatience, intolerance, agitation – often involves outrage, revenge, and grudges. It seeks to uncover sin, but not for the purpose of healing it. It tends to dismiss others as worthless and irredeemable. It promotes victimhood and resentment, a downward spiral for humanity.

Jesus uncovered sin in order to heal it. When he encountered a woman accused of adultery, he never suggested that the woman was humanly innocent of this act. But he saw her spiritual innocence, her true nature as God’s loved and pure child. He knew that divine Principle, Love, could never create a sinner and that this woman had the divine right to cast off this facade. This was the foundation of Jesus’ forbearance, which redeemed her. The crowd surrounding this woman condemned her, seeking to destroy her life. Jesus instead made her an example of healing and salvation (see John 8:3-11).

Evil is never personal. It is a lie about God’s creation. In the infinitude of God, good, evil has no origin, no action, no power, no actor, and no victim. Understanding this, Jesus was able to help the crowd accusing the woman to see that we all need forbearance and forgiveness from others sometimes. And the Christ, speaking to human consciousness, lifted the woman to a new sense of her full citizenship in God’s kingdom. Each of us has that same opportunity.

Some mistakes have been codified by governments as requiring imprisonment in a penitentiary as part of paying one’s debt. Did you know that the definition of penitentiary includes “a place of refuge for reformation” and “a place for penitents” (“Merriam-Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary”)? What if everyone thought of those whom we might be quick to accuse or convict as “penitents” in the best, most honest sense?

Christianity is about redemption, about second chances, about being patient and forbearing with one another as Jesus was. We can actively watch for and seize opportunities to let that same Christ-spirit shine through our lives. Because we are each the spiritual expression of God, we reflect Christly qualities here and now. We can rejoice that we are already equipped to follow Jesus’ example and demonstrate that “...Love is reflected in love” (Mary Baker Eddy, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” p. 17).

Adapted from an editorial published in the July 31, 2023, issue of the Christian Science Sentinel.