“How in the world do you love someone when they annoy the crap out of you!?!?” is what someone as wicked as me often ponders—with exclamation point prayers.

Sometimes we pray things like, “God, fix this person. They are so sinful and foolish that it’s driving me crazy.”

But the Bible tells us to overlook faults, and says things like, “We always thank God for you.” Was Paul so blind that he didn’t see the crazy sin in people’s lives? How was he able to thank God and love people and force his eyes to look upon the good things about them, so that he could impact them for the gospel?

Luke 18:9-14
To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'

"But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'

"I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."