A CIRCLE OF FORGIVENESS

As Christ grows greater in our minds, we lose our need to be authorities over what others think and do. 

The deepening awareness that we have been wrong more than we have been right—that we are only now approaching the starting point of faith—creates a gentle tolerance for those now camped where we once stopped, or mired in the stuff from which Christ freed us. We learn to smile at vehemence and vitriol, remembering how frequently we used them for bad causes or when we were still unsure. 

Grace makes us gracious to the ungraceful, for we see ourselves in them. We remember that their faults are just as pardonable as ours, and no more dangerous. 

The fellowship of the forgiven is as vast as the grace that makes it possible. 

So stay in grace.