I serve on a team at church with someone who is genuinely hard work, and I dread every rota we share. How do I handle that with grace?

“The discretion of a man deferreth his anger; and it is his glory to pass over a transgression.”

Proverbs speaks to people living at close quarters with neighbours they had not chosen, in villages where avoiding somebody was simply not an option. The saying treats slowness to anger as a skill that can be developed rather than a temperament you either have or lack, and it calls overlooking an offense glory rather than weakness. It assumes the offenses are real and judges them worth passing over anyway.

“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.”

Paul writes to a mixed congregation and describes forbearance as something you put on, like clothing, deliberately, every day. He assumes there will be quarrels and grievances rather than hoping there will not be. The striking part is where the standard comes from: not how much the other person deserves patience, but how you yourself have been treated by Christ. That is what makes it possible in a week when they deserve none.