People Aren't Perfect

What is ours, we are disposed to defend even our own faults. We sometimes seem to feel about our faults somewhat as we feel about our children. We may defend them against all outside criticism, and yet reserve the right to criticize them ourselves. Blind as we may be to the faults of those we love, we are not completely blind. And when we are honest with ourselves, we are not completely blind even to our own faults. And since we know that neither we nor our own children have yet reached perfection, we would scarcely be justified in expecting perfection in others. We would scarcely be justified in expecting others to do things always just as they should be done, any more than we can expect ourselves to do things always just as they should be done. It would hardly be fair to ask from others what we ourselves are not able to give a perfect performance. Sometimes even when we think we have turned in a near-perfect performance, we later find that others don’t think so. Often when we think we have done the right thing in the right way, we later find that we have given others cause for offense, without knowing it. And likewise those who offend us may be sincerely unaware of having done so. And so it would seem that we should not be less willing to make allowances for the faults of other men and other men’s children than we are for our own. There is still before us on this subject the Lord’s own utterance: “…forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors…if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” The human race is not a race of perfection. But is has before it the promise and possibility of everlasting improvement of eternal progress. And we must not become sour or cynical merely because we find imperfections in other people.