“Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.” (Colossians 3:13 NLT)

Do we really realize, as we walk through life, just how often people make allowances for us?

The world has, in many ways, turned into a very contentious place. We especially see this in the number of road rage incidents that seems to ever be on the rise. But even beyond this, there is this underlying anger that seems to be present today. And the enemy loves this!

I get very frustrated with people. I am not proud of this, but I do. I have been working on trying to remember that everyone has their stress and issues they are dealing with. Yes, sometimes it is simply people’s arrogance, but I think more often we are all just harboring a lot of stress in our lives. More often it is the pace in which I live. I have little patience for any lack of efficiency.

At a time in history when we have the knowledge of the world at our fingertips and such great technological and medical advances, we feel the greatest stress. I think this is because all of these things have sped life up. Nothing lends itself any longer to slowing down our pace, everything is simply more, faster, bigger.

We have stopped making allowances for others who may not run at this pace. They are the masses who are trampled under the foot of our advancement.

But in our faith life we are given direction to make allowances, to forgive and forget.