Be resilient!

Even though I have troubles and hard times, your commands give me joy. (Psalm 119:143)

Sophocles said, "There is no success without hardship." Eric Greitens said, "Of course fear does not automatically lead to courage. Injury does not necessarily lead to insight. Hardship will not automatically make us better. Pain can break us or make us wiser. Suffering can destroy us or make us stronger. Fear can cripple us, or it can make us more courageous. It is resilience that makes the difference." I'd have to say the 'resilience' we have in our lives is heaven sent - it is not humanly possible to endure some of the hardships life sends our way!

Resilience is the power or ability of a particular 'material' to return to its original form/position after being bent, stretched, or compressed. There are hard times that seek to disturb our 'form' and remove us from our secure 'position' in Christ Jesus. We must be able to 'bend', be 'stretched', or face the inevitable feeling of being 'compressed' under pressure without actually being removed from the security of our position in Christ. We may 'change' when faced with hardship, but we do so for the best when the change is the result of his power within us.

Turn to his word in hard times - it is what gives us the resilience. Find joy in his commands, celebrate his promises, and hold tightly to his assurances found deep within those pages. Words on a page are simply than until we ask God to put those same words deep within our hearts. As we do so, we find there is a supernatural ability to 'adjust' to the situation - not be bent by it, but to adjust our frame of mind to look beyond it and directly into the eyes of Jesus. All manner of crises and disturbances will come our way, but when his word dwells within our hearts and is settled deep within our minds, those things stand no chance! Just sayin!