Join me in a mind exercise: Imagine a normal Christian living a typical Christian life. What does this person look like? How does this person dress? Talk? Act? What kind of personality does he or she possess?

Take a moment and let a person who represents normal Christianity materialize in your mind.

Did you imagine someone that looked a lot like yourself?

If so, you are not alone.

The Illusion of Normalcy

We usually consider ourselves “the norm.” No one of us views ourselves as “out of balance.” In our imagination, we are all “moderates.” None of us are extremists. We all consider ourselves – our way of acting, talking, and being – as balanced, sane, and, well… normal.

We choose to live, talk, and behave the way we do because we consider it the best way to live. It is the very reason we are the way we are.

But the truth is that there is no such thing as a typical Christian! Whatever answers you gave to the questions above are more indicative of your own tastes, personal preferences, and personality than they are of a so-called “normal” Christian.

Since we tend to think of ourselves as “the norm” we often want everyone to be like us. If we claim that we don’t, why then do others’ differences bother us so much? For example:

• If we are introverted, we think little of those who are social butterflies. We say to ourselves, “They should spend more time alone with God!”
• If we are outgoing, we think little of those who need time alone to refuel: “They should be around people more.”
• If we are intellectual, we think little of those who don’t read or study as much as we do: “They should read more.”
• If we are activists, we think little of those who always have their face in a book: “They should talk less, and do more.”
• If we are orderly and scheduled, we think little of those who are free-flowing in their worship and life: “They should be more disciplined.”
• If we are free-spirited, we think little of those who like fixed liturgy in worship: “They should be more spontaneous.”
• If we are sensual and earthy, we will be attracted to incense and candles. If we are artistic, we will be attracted to creative expressions of faith — dance, song, art. If we are non-artistic, we will probably not appreciate any of the above, being content with words alone and suspicious of anything else.

This could go on ad infinitum, ad nauseum! We think our way is best — otherwise we wouldn’t live the way we do!

And yet, none of us are normal! All of us are weird… to somebody. As one author has put it, “Everybody is somebody else’s weirdo.”[1]

One Faith, Many Expressions

There is only “one faith,” but there are as many expressions of “one faith” as there are believers. Once we limit the endless variety of personalities and the unique expressions of the Christian faith, we narrow our acceptance of others. When we equate our way with the “right way,” we become impatient with others. We become narrow and intolerant. Even worse, we become guilty of the worst sin of all – spiritual pride!

If we desire to become patient, forbearing people we must learn to love those unlike ourselves. We must learn to appreciate the diverse expressions of faith among us, no matter how different from us they may be.

The New Testament Church was full of diversity: Different races (Jew and Gentile), different levels of education (academic and un-schooled), different backgrounds (conservative and liberal), different personalities (contrast hot-headed and passionate Peter with the intense and logical Paul), and different social status (free and slave). The Church was not a melting pot, but a mosaic of distinct individuals all united by their common faith in Jesus Christ.

This radical diversity was the context in which spiritual unity was experienced. Diversity made the Church’s unity that much more special and unique! Jesus himself taught that there is nothing special in loving those like ourselves (Matt 5:46-47). On the contrary, there is something godlike in loving those unlike ourselves.

Loving the Unlikable

You’ve heard the expression, “I love you, but I don’t like you.” This is a valid distinction. There are countless people God calls us to love that we don’t necessarily like. Some people we are naturally attracted to; others do not hold the same attraction. The simple fact is that it is easy to love those we like, precisely because they are like us in the first place. It is much harder to love those with whom we have little in common.

The Christian faith calls us to love one another – even those we don’t like. Stated another way: as Christians, we are called to love the unlikable. This kind of love is called forbearance. It is this quality of love – an aspect of patience – which is vital to true Christian unity and community.

Forbearance is the key to unity. It is the necessary ingredient to authentic community in the midst of diversity. Without forbearance, unity is impossible to achieve or maintain. We do not naturally like all our Christian brothers and sisters, but we must love them.

Our Lord’s missionary program is simply this: “They will know you are Christians by your love, one for another” (John 13:34-35). This love is displayed in the midst of diversity. When we love the unlikable, we demonstrate true Christian love – love that reveals to the world that God is truly in our midst!

Four Virtues for Unity

A life worthy of God’s calling – a life that is zealously committed to spiritual unity – is marked by certain key virtues that achieve and maintain the precious gift of unity. These qualities are humility, gentleness, patience, and forbearance (Ephesians 4:1-3). All of these are key aspects of Christian love.

Humility is selfless concern for others. Although humility was perceived as a negative trait by ancient Greeks – a characteristic only appropriate for lowly slaves – Paul taught that humility was godlike. The self-emptying example of Christ changed this quality from negative to positive (see Philippians 2:5-8). The humble person is simultaneously aware of his or her own sinfulness and the value of others. She renounces self-centeredness, self-importance, self-exaltation, and self-seeking. She admits that God is the center of all things, and she is not. Thus, the humble person gives herself away to God and others.

Gentleness (or, as some Bible versions translate it, meekness) is not weakness. Instead, it is strength under control. It has to do with passions controlled by principle. It is velvet steel sturdiness. It is like a tame lion that has much strength, but keeps it under control. Gentleness renounces harshness and violence. The gentle person possesses a strong personality but is nevertheless master of himself and a servant to others.

Patience is long-suffering love expressed toward aggravating people and irritating circumstances. It endures annoyances and difficulties over a long period of time. Patience renounces demanding others fit with our agendas, schedules, and expectations. Patience empowers us to wait on others.

Forbearance means “to bear with,” “to put up with,” or “to give slack to” others. Forbearance bears with the irritating qualities of others – their annoyances, irritations, and peculiarities. It renounces judgmentalism, narcissism, and egocentrism. Gerald Sittser writes,

Forbearance requires that we give people room to be themselves, that we accept them under those terms without communicating a spirit of disapproval or judgment, and that we rejoice in them as a special creation of God. It is a way of saying, “This is who you are in my eyes and I am glad for it.”[2]

Forbearance is a call to love the unlikable. Forbearing love rises above feelings and empowers us to love those for whom we have no special attraction. Even more, it empowers us to love those who irritate us. Forbearance forbids us from allowing our own comfort zone to be the yardstick of acceptance. Through forbearance we value unity more than our own personal preferences, opinions, likes, and dislikes. It allows us to give ourselves to others regardless of what we receive from the relationship. It frees us to love beyond our feelings.

Six Reasons Forbearance is Important

Following are six reasons forbearance is important in the Christian life:

First, we bear with others because we are all part of one big family. Whether we like it or not, our brothers and sisters in Christ are family. Therefore, we must learn to forbear their peculiarities. There is one faith, but there are as many expressions of this one faith as there are believers. Like our earthly families, we do not choose our spiritual family. We share a bond of love through a bond of blood – Christ’s blood, to be exact.

Like family, we cannot pretend to love what does not exist. Our family is dysfunctional – full of crazy aunts, weird uncles, eccentric grandparents, foolish sons, and quirky daughters. If we authentically interact with the family we have – and not the ideal family of our imagination – then we will be forced to practice forbearance. As one person has wisely said,

To live in love with the saints above,
    O, that will be glory!
To live below with the saints we know,
    Now, that’s another story!

Second, we value forbearance because of God’s diverse creativity. God has made a universe full of glorious variety and diversity. The world is full of different species of animals, beautiful spectrums of color, an endless variety of tones, and rich amounts of “useless beauty.” Simply consider the seemingly endless assortment of flowers. God’s creation includes an endless diversity of personalities, looks, body-types, and mind-types. If we desire to reflect God, we must value diversity. God did not create a black-and-white world.

Third, God’s forbearance is the model for our own expression of forbearance. God endures a lot without breaking out in wrath. We are called to share his heart. Gerald Sittser puts it well:

It should stagger us to consider how much God forbears. I am not referring now to the terrible things that we do, although God forgives us for those things. I am talking about the little things that we do that God simply overlooks, bears with and loves us through, like our smallness of mind, defensiveness, bad moods, obnoxious personalities, sour attitudes, petty concerns and acute self-consciousness... He commands us to give each other the slack that he has given us. Forbearance thus requires that we give people room – room to be who they are, to become what God intends, to contribute what they can to the church and the world, in spite of their imperfections.[3]

Fourth, our self-forbearance demands that we allow others the same privilege. A forbearing person puts up with the faults and idiosyncrasies of others because he knows that he possesses many of his own. He cuts people slack because of all the slack he cuts himself.

In the classic book, The Imitation of Christ, Thomas a’Kempis encourages us to put up with others to the same extent we do ourselves. He writes, “Strive to be patient in bearing the defects of others. You yourself have many also, and they have to be put up with by them. If you are not yourself such as you would wish to be, how could you expect to find another according to your liking?”

The forbearing person doesn’t just “love the sinner but hate the sin.” The forbearing person just loves people. No “buts.” Accepting others while holding our nose in their presence is hardly worthy of our high call to “accept one another as God in Christ has accepted you” (Romans 15:7).

If this stretches us too far, perhaps we should consider C. S. Lewis’s wise words in his classic book, Mere Christianity. In his chapter on forgiveness he writes,

Now that I come to think of it, I remember Christian teachers telling me long ago that I must hate a bad man's actions, but not hate the bad man: or as they would say, hate the sin but not the sinner.

For a long time I used to think this is a silly, straw-splitting distinction: how could you hate what a man did and not hate the man? But years later it occurred to me that there was one man to whom I had been doing this all my life – namely myself. However much I might dislike my own cowardice or conceit or greed, I went on loving myself. There had never been the slightest difficulty about it. In fact, the very reason why I hated the things was that I loved the man. Just because I loved myself was sorry to find that I was the sort of man who did those things. Consequently Christianity does not want us to reduce by one atom the hatred we feel for cruelty and treachery. We ought to hate them. Not one word of what we have said about them needs to be unsaid. But it does want us to hate them in the same way in which we hate things in ourselves: being sorry that the man should have done such things, and hoping if it is anyway possible, that somehow, sometime, somewhere, he can be cured and made human again.[4]

Fifth, forbearance is at the heart of true community. Authentic Christian community consists of unity in diversity. God brings together radically different people – different gifts, interests, hobbies, temperaments, personalities – and weaves us together as one body. This is a strength. On this truth, Jean Vanier writes,

Community brings together people of very different temperaments. Some are organised, quick, precise and efficient; they tend to be defensive and legalistic. Others are open, flexible and love personal contact; they are less efficient – to say the least! Others are shy and tend to become depressed and pessimistic. Others again are extrovert, optimistic, and even a bit exalted. God calls all these opposites together to create the wealth of the community. It may not be very easy at first. But gradually we discover what a richness it is to live with such a diversity of people, and such diversity of gifts. We discover the difference is not a threat but a treasure, or that “variety is evidence of life: cold conformity presages death.”[5]

Our differences are not a cause for dismay, but for rejoicing. Our differences provide opportunities to grow rather than obstacles to love. Learning to love in, through, and with our differences is at the heart of Christian witness. It is the essence of Christian community. To do otherwise is to merely establish a social club and not a society of the Spirit.

Sixth, forbearance provides the opportunity for true transformation to occur. Some assume that too much forbearance will result in a weak, spineless Christianity. They demand that every member of the community resemble one another in cookie-cutter uniformity. Unfortunately, this clone-making weakens a community’s DNA and makes it impossible for people to grow to maturity. M. J. Ryan is right:

What’s fascinating about patience in love is that when we accept one another as we are, we actually increase the possibility of change. That’s because our partner’s patience produces a safe haven where we are accepted, warts and all, and in the warmth of that acceptance we may actually feel safe enough to risk growing.[6]

Do we love others enough to let them be themselves, to trust that God will work in and through their peculiarities and eccentricities to make them the unique saint he desires them to be? Do we love others enough to put up with their flaws? To give them space to change at their own pace? Just as we often fall short of our own expectations, we can rest assured that others will do the same: “People can and do change, but they rarely change as much as we desire.”[7]

God Likes You!

The great news is that God loves us – and God likes us! He made us unique. No one of us is alike. God loves variety. He created it. We don’t have to bring up a matter every time we are frustrated with others. Such behavior creates a community of endless bickering, snap judgments, and cold hearts. We are to “put up” with others’ irritating qualities – not “bring up” them. “Love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8). Love does not endlessly harangue others over every frustrating detail!

Humility, gentleness, patience, and forbearance are four essential qualities of divine, Spirit-filled love. They are also virtues of Christ. We show to whom we belong when we live in accordance with these virtues. As we grow and develop these qualities, we become more like the God we love. And our community becomes more like the community God calls us to be – a diverse group of individuals marked by God’s Spirit, united by faith and love in the bond of Christ; an accepting community that mirrors the boundless grace, love, and acceptance of God.

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© Richard J. Vincent, 2006