The Grace of Forbearance

“Let your forbearance be known unto all men” (Phil. iv. 5).

The grace of forbearance is a sure accompaniment of joy in the Lord. The man whose spirit is clothed in sunny assurance, and who rides triumphantly upon his circumstances, will never be harsh or morose toward his fellows. When spiritual joy is absent, life is apt to become painfully rigorous; its very sadness is prone to make life hard and insensitive. When the heart is cold, our behaviour tends to be thoughtless and obstinate. The spiritual pessimist is wanting in delicacy, and his touch is violent. Spiritual joy endows the life with exquisiteness, and confers the power of apprehending the standpoint of our brother. The man who rejoices “in the Lord” is spiritually

telepathic, he can read the secret hearts of men.

He is therefore distinguished by the grace of forbearance.

Now this grace of forbearance or gentleness is one greatly honoured in the Christian Scriptures. But its significance has been sometimes grievously misinterpreted. Its manifestations have frequently been suspicious, and lacking in a noble impressiveness. Real gentleness is never the issue of weakness; it is ever the offspring of strength. Weakness can be very clumsy, and can therefore blunder into painful outrage. A surgeon with a weak will and a trembling hand can never be gentle with his patient. He lacks the terrible resources which impart the exquisite touch. It is the surgeon with irresistible will, with iron nerves, who can hold his hand with such steady control as to touch a wound like softest thistle-down. A weak hand would torture the patient; a strong hand .is the gentle minister of restoration. And so it is in the higher realms of character. Effeminate men do not make gentle knights. We need iron for the making of the finest blood. If the iron is absent from the character, the sentiment is watery, and pathetically inefficient. And so it is well to remember that this same Apostle, who counsels his disciples to be forbearing, also counsels them to “be strong.” If we are not strong we may easily be brutal; if we are strong it is easy to be exquisite. It is people with loose opinions who are frequently the most intolerant; the man with the finest conviction is usually the man of widest and most hospitable communion.

Let me point out one or two characteristics of this most winsome grace. In the first place, forbearance, or gentleness, is reasonableness of dealing, a fine consideration for the claims of others, the spirit which does not urge its personal rights to the uttermost. It is frequently true that my highest right is not to claim my right. That is sometimes forgotten, and the noblest franchise of the soul remains unexercised. Our Lord Jesus, as we have seen in an earlier part of this letter to the Philippians, had (a perfect right to be on “an equality with God”; but He “counted it not a prize” to be grasped at; He “emptied Himself,” and laid the right aside. And so it is with the lives of His true disciples. They often taste their sweetest right in the surrender of their rights. They offer the chief seats to others, and find an excellent delight in the lower place. And this is one of the shining characteristics of the gentle life. It is strong enough to feel the rights of other people, and to prefer them to its own. It is always a sign of an impaired and perverted spirit that it magnifies its own rights, to the obscuring and subjection of another’s. My own rights are shining with a clear and smokeless radiance when they illumine and magnify the rights of my brother.

And so, in the second place, it is very clear that forbearance includes the element of kindliness. It is possible for me to recognise and respect the rights of my brother, and yet for my behaviour to be unattractive and unpleasant. A surrender may be brutal and sullen, and made to the accompaniment of growling, thundery murmur. I may yield the crown, and yet, by the very spirit of the yielding, I may convert it into a crown of thorns. And this is not the forbearance and gentleness of Jesus. In Christian forbearance there is no sultry gloom, no ominous grumbling. The atmosphere is pure and bright and sweet, and the birds are singing. The spirit is altogether kindly; how can it be otherwise with a spirit that is rejoicing “in the Lord”? How can there be this hallowed joy in the heart, and a gloomy frown in the face? True gentleness must be kindly and sunny; it is “light in the Lord.”

And now the Apostle makes a very remarkable addition to his counsel. “The Lord is at hand.” Is this not the introduction of a jangling discord? We have heard his exhortations to joy and gentleness, but will not this intrusion of coming judgment plunge the merry heart into cold eclipse? Will it not be as when some stealthy terror appears upon the field of sight, and all the birds are hushed in fearful silence? Oh no; that is one of the perversions of the years, but it was not the experience of the apostolic days. When the apostles thought of the Lord’s coming, and “of the day of the

Lord,” their hearts rang out a merrier peal. It was not the gloom of eclipse, but the daybreak, when all shadows should flee away. And so they thought gladly and with longing of His coming, and their gentleness became still more refined. It gave courage to their hearts, and firmness to their steps, and out of that valorous strength there sprang all the softer graces of the consecrated life.