“Boundaries.”
“Toxic.”
“Protect your peace.”
These words (and the concepts they represent) have rolled in like a fog, saturating the relational air we breathe. It seems that every podcast I listen to, every social media post trending on my feed, and most coffee shop conversations elevate the value of drawing hard lines between ourselves and those who have hurt us, disappointed us, or failed to accept us just as we are. But the more I’ve chewed on that approach to relationships, the more agitated my spirit has become, forcing me to ask the two big questions meant to drive the choices of every follower of Jesus:
- What did Jesus teach and model?
- What does the Bible say?
To be fair, there are no black and white answers that fit all relationships at all times. The Christian life can never be lived well apart from walking in step with the Spirit (Rom. 8:14). But the answers to these paramount questions reveal that our constant attempts to mitigate risk and heartache through hard relational lines misses something significant: the countercultural beauty of forbearance.
Forbearance Is Your Uniform
In his letter to the first century believers in Colossae, Paul reminded our brothers and sisters (and us through the Spirit-preserved Word), that coming to Christ requires a necessary stripping of the old man. We take off our old ways of thinking and operating so that we can put on the ways of Christ. While our hearts are the first part of us to undress and be redressed again, this internal change must spread outward into the ways we treat each other.
Hear Paul’s powerful, yet uncomfortable, words:
Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. (Colossians 3:12–13 ESV)
The King James Version includes some words we seem to have collectively erased from our relational vocabulary (and I’m not talking about the “ye”).
Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.
The idea is that we wrap ourselves in forbearance and longsuffering. They become our uniform, making us easily distinguishable from those fighting similar relational battles without the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and pervasive hope of Christ.
In his letter to the believers in Ephesus, Paul made the same plea:
I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love. (Ephesians 4:1–2 ESV)
“Boundaries” can never be synonymous with bearing with another person in their brokenness. Longsuffering is, as the word implies, to endure relational hardship for an uncomfortable amount of time. I fear that we’ve lost this value in our collective quest to make our relationships as neat and tidy as possible. And what a tragic loss it is!
To Forbear, Divine
Of course Christ never calls us to something He didn’t first embody. Who has forborn more than Jesus? Every one of his disciples had toxic traits. Most turned tail and ran at the moment He needed them most. Every person who claims to love Him sins against Him. Yet, from the cross, Jesus smashed boundaries instead of building them. Despite our fallenness, He continually draws us near.
Romans 2:4 tells us that God continues to forbear with sinners, desiring that it produce an eternal good in us: “Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?”
To make demands that people change according to your agenda and on your timeline is chiefly human: to forebear, divine.
And let us not forget that anything we do without love makes us obnoxious noise makers (1 Cor. 13:1–13), which requires us to ask: have we let our obsession with self-love crowd out Scripture’s call to love like Jesus?
Forbearance as a Foretaste
Every person you know and love is deeply warped by sin. We’re broken in the nucleus of our cells. This is why our need for a savior is so desperate. It’s also why we will never fully remove all pain, disappointment, rejection, and even trauma from our relationships.
As I write these words, I can anticipate your pushback. Perhaps there are times when relationships need space and healthier rules of engagement need to be set, but never at the cost of forbearance. Our north star is never “How can I make my relationships more comfortable?” but rather, “How can I be most like Christ?”
There will be pain points in the year ahead, and the year after that, and the year after that (if our King tarries), but ultimately these are merely signposts that we remain inhabitants of the broken planet. A new earth is coming, a place where there will be no more crying, no more pain, no more disappointment . . . nothing more to forbear. We can’t draw boundary lines deep enough to insulate us from relational pain, but we can let the things we wish would change point us to the God who never will.
Perhaps you will choose a word of the year for 2025. Might I suggest “forbearance”? To be sure, you will have many opportunities to practice it. Each time you do, you will follow Jesus’ example.
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. (Romans 3:23–25 ESV)
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