We don't know our strength until we resist

Jen shared this C.S. Lewis quote with me (comes from Mere Christianity) the other night...amazing.

A silly idea is current that good people don’t know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. After all, you find out the strength of the German army by fighting against it, not by giving in. You find out the strength of a wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down. A man who gives into temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it: and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is the only man who knows to the full what temptation means—the only complete realist.

Powerful, no?

Unfortunately, we often judge people based on the errors to which we see them capitulate, having little idea of what they have withstood. Regardless, I believe God's interest in us pertains to the future, not the past. God doesn't fetish our failures - He looks to our potential (John 8).

I just need to exemplify this same charity in my own life.