It is not easy living in a church community—it's full of sinful people who do all sorts of things that disturb us. But an old story from the lives of the fourth-century Egyptian monks reminds us about the biblical approach to our frustration.

A monk told his monastic leader, Poeman, "I am troubled in spirit, and I want to leave this place."

The old man said, "Why?"

He said, "I have heard unedifying stories about one of the brothers."

The old man said, "Are the stories true?"

He said, "Yes, Father. The brother who told me is a man of trust."

The old man answered, "The brother who told you is not a man of trust. For if he was so, he would not have told you these stories. When God heard the cry of the men of Sodom, he did not believe it until he had gone down and seen it with his own eyes."

The brother said, "I too have seen it with my own eyes."

When the old man heard this, he looked down and picked off the ground a wisp of straw, and he said, "What is this?"

He answered, "Straw."

Then the old man reached up and touched the roof of the cell and said, "What is this?"

He answered, "It is the beam that holds up the room."

The old man said, "Take it into your heart that your sins are like this beam, and that your brother's sins are like this wisp of straw."