The Stubborn Resilience of a Disciple

Discipline. Failure. Learning. Evaluate. Strategize. Recover. Progress. These are all words that are characteristic of the life of a disciple.

Needless to say, it’s not always a smooth ride. As I have personally understood and experienced, there’s a vast difference between cognitively understanding something and making it part of one’s daily life experience. And much of following Jesus is like that. We understand, for example, that we are children of God, housed by his Spirit, empowered and enabled to live a God-filled and God-like life. Sounds great, doesn’t it? And there are scriptures and experiences described in scripture that back these truths up. But to live out these truths as life-defining realities, takes practice.

And this is where there needs to be another word that’s added to the list of words that characterize a disciple – Resilience.

What is Resilience?

1. the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness. 2. the ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape; elasticity .” Oxford Dictionary

The writer of Proverbs put it this way

15 Do not lurk like a thief near the house of the righteous,do not plunder their dwelling place; 16 for though the righteous fall seven times, they rise again,but the wicked stumble when calamity strikes. Proverbs 24:15-16 (NIV)

Now that’s resilience isn’t it? There’s no point plundering the righteous because they will rise again! That’s the life that God’s calling you and me to. Not a life where everything happens perfectly. In fact life can be chaotic, noisy, confusing, and riddled with obstacles. But the key to living this life is to build that inner tenacity that causes you to be resilient.

It’s like stretching a rubber band between your fingers. The stronger it is, the more stretching it can bear without breaking and the more quickly it comes back into shape. For its resilience to improve, there needs to be more inner strength by way of the amount or type of rubber used to make it.

And that’s reminiscent to what God is doing in us as we journey with him. There is a shape our lives are meant to take – the shape of God. As we journey with Him, he wants to build that inner strength so that when those challenges come, when we face setbacks and failures, when progress takes longer than expected, we can quickly spring back into shape. That’s resilience.

Where does this strength come from? For me, one of the things that keeps my stubborn resilient up in the face of the worst of setbacks is the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. You can’t get more resilient than that, can you? This is where my hope comes from. There at the cross, when it seemed that death,evil and sin had the ultimate victory, Jesus emerges victorious from the grave. It tells me

If Jesus rose again, his power within me enables me to rise again.

Like Paul prayed,

“I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, 19 and his incomparably great power for us who believe. “ Ephesians 1:18-19

You’ve got to know that the same Spirit, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead lives within you. And so, this is a truth we want to soak in, enjoy and bask in – His power in me, tells me that my story isn’t over yet! I am not going to stay down, but I will rise again.

What is that script that runs in your mind limiting you to the confines of your past, your choices, your failures or setbacks? This is your time to emerge. Like the Psalmist said, “Put your hope in God” (Psalm 42:11)

I’ve been through a lot of failures in my walk with God. I can’t even begin to write about them. But one thing that I’ve noticed every time I draw near to God is that he separates me from my sin and calls me His child. And then I feel him say, “Let’s get through this together, you and me”. But I can tell you from experience that this kind of life takes practice. And just like we see the disciples of Jesus in the gospels oscillating between valiant acts of faith and faith paralysis, we too find ourselves learning to find our bearings when it comes to our journey with Jesus.

Resilience is built in us through a revelation of his love for us (Ephesians 3:16), a faith-filled vision of who God is and who he’s made you (Ephesians 6:11,16) and a heart filled with the hope you have through the presence of His Spirit in you today (1 John 4:4).

Is your heart filled with hope today? Or do you find yourself empty, dry and confused? Find hope today at the cross of Jesus where he loved us by laying his life down and then at the grave where he overcame every obstacle that sin and the devil posed. And now, he is with you. His Spirit’s in you. Soak for a moment in that hope.

This hope is what causes us to echo the words of Paul

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 2 Corinthians 4:7-9

This is who we are. We are resilient disciples of Jesus.

#resilience #christ #Faith #hope #love #cross #identity