Ephesians 4:2-3

“Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love. Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace.”

I think I experience conflict on a daily basis. More often than not, it’s at home with my children or my wife, but sometimes it’s with the folks that I work with or go to church with or just people I encounter out in the world. We should work to get along with everybody, but today’s verse is specifically about our relationships with other Believers.

It has been said that humility is not thinking less of ourselves, but thinking of ourselves less. Combine that with gentleness and patience and you begin to see what God is calling us to in our relationships, especially when it comes to “making allowances for each other’s faults.” Sadly, we usually point those faults out and try to use them to our own advantage. For the Christian, this simply should not be.

We are all walking around with a fairly “wide load” of sin and that makes it hard to keep from “bumping” into one another. It’s like riding the bumper cars at the fair, except in our sin we get mad at all the other drivers for bumping into us! Silly, isn’t it? Instead, let’s try to make the “ride” as peaceful as possible, while being willing to forgive one another quickly when we “bump” into one another along the way.