I Love You Anyway!

tolerance - I Love You Anyway!

Uphold the weak, be patient with all. 1 Thessalonians 5:14

I (Teresa) am not at all good with directions, and I can’t make heads or tails out of a map. Therefore, it’s easy for me to get all turned around and lost. My only hope of finding my way around is to orient myself to a familiar shopping mall. David, on the other hand, always seems to know intuitively where he’s going.

Recently David and I remodeled our house, and we needed some new ceramic tiles. We headed out to the tile store, and I promptly got lost looking for it. I’d been to the store once before, a couple of weeks earlier. I didn’t remember exactly where the complex was, but I was sure I’d recognize it when I saw it. We tried one complex, then another. “Maybe we could go just a little farther,” I suggested.

After I had driven in circles at least three times, David began teasing me a little. He did not attack my character or me personally. Instead, he suggested that we call the business and get directions. In doing this, he showed me considerable tolerance. When we finally found the store, David still had a good attitude, and we enjoyed our time together picking out tile.

I believe that it’s part of God’s plan that tolerance can be “pulled off” only as patience is being perfected. Our Christlikeness is a high priority to the Lord, who is working to perfect us so that we can be His Son’s bride.

God uses our spouses—their imperfections, their quirks, their shortcomings—as tools to perfect us for that very purpose.

How can you begin changing your response to your spouse’s shortcomings today?