“With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love;”
— Ephesians 4:2 (King James Version)
You know the moment. It's the third time you've explained the same thing to a coworker who wasn't listening, or the family text thread that's gone sideways again, or the person ahead of you at the counter who is taking forever while your patience thins to a thread. Something in us straightens up and gets ready to be right. And Paul's old counsel—to walk "with all lowliness and meekness," to keep "forbearing one another in love"—arrives feeling almost impossibly gentle for such a sharp-elbowed day.
But notice what he does not say. He does not ask us to feel warmly toward everyone. He asks us to bear with them. Forbearance is not a mood; it is a decision you can make even when your mood objects.
St. Augustine, the fourth-century bishop who wrote with unusual honesty about his own restless heart, taught that pride is the root beneath most of our quarrels—that we defend ourselves so fiercely because we secretly want to be first. His remedy was almost stubbornly simple: the way up, he said, is down. Humility isn't thinking less of yourself; it's needing less to be exalted. When you stop guarding your rank, half the day's friction quietly disappears.
Centuries later Thomas à Kempis, the quiet monk behind The Imitation of Christ, offered a line that has steadied readers for six hundred years: he reminds us that everyone has burdens to carry, and none of us is strong enough to carry them alone—so we must learn to bear with one another. That coworker, that relative, that slow stranger: each is hauling something you cannot see. Forbearance is simply refusing to add to the load.
And Bernard of Clairvaux, the twelfth-century abbot whose sermons could move kings, insisted that humility is not weakness but clear sight—seeing yourself truthfully, and therefore seeing others with mercy.
So here is your small, strong assignment for today. The next time you feel yourself rising to be right, try instead to be patient—just once, on purpose. Let the point go. Bear with the person in front of you. You will lose nothing that mattered, and you may be astonished at how much lighter you feel by evening. Meekness, it turns out, is not surrender. It is a quiet kind of power.
A Prayer for Today
Gracious God, when I am quick to defend myself today, make me slow instead—slow to anger, quick to listen, ready to bear with those around me in love. Teach me the strength that hides inside humility, and let me lighten someone's burden rather than add to it. Amen.