Developing a Spirit of Resilience: Part Two
Your resilience is developed by taking your cares to Him continually and having the confidence and faith that He not only hears you but answers you.
Welcome to the 57th post of The Aim and Soar Life, a weekly newsletter about faith, personal growth, and lifestyle that provides actionable, relatable, and biblically rooted content to help you live abundantly and GROW YOU. GOD’S WAY.
Greetings!
Happy Resurrection Day! What a glorious Sunday! As promised, I’m back with part two of last week’s post, Developing a Spirit of Resilience. If you haven’t had a chance to check it out yet, you can find it here.
9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”
Joshua 1:9, NIV
Have you ever been afraid of something to the point that it robbed you of your peace or caused you to doubt your faith? I have.
Up until about seven years ago, I had a fear of being alone and living as a single person for the rest of my life. At this stage of my life, that is no longer a fear of mine. Now, however, from time to time, I am fearful about the safety of my son who is a young adult. When he doesn’t call me in a timely manner, or if I don’t hear from him after a few days, I begin to worry because of all the things that are happening in the world today. Yes, I traded one fear for another.
My spiritual self knows that fear isn’t of God. However, my flesh competes with my spirit, and I have to fight hard with prayer to avoid being overcome with worry. It’s a continual process for me.
Banishing Fear to Develop Resilience
I’ve found that it’s easy to quote scriptures about not fearing until you or someone you know is given a life-threatening diagnosis, experiences a financial crisis, or some other life event that knocks you out of your square and bulldozes your white picket fence fantasy.
Fear of the unknown can be powerful. But God commands us not to fear. Developing a spirit of resilience is contingent upon doing what God commands, which is, “Do not be afraid.” So how do we banish fear from our lives and become resilient?
The latter part of Joshua 1:9 holds the answer. It says, “…for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” It is important to note that the phrase, “wherever you go” does not confine God to only the physical places you might be in, like after you’ve moved to a new city or started a new job.
Yes, God is with you in those places, but because when we receive Christ, the Holy Spirit comes to live inside of us, “wherever you go,” includes the emotional spaces you might find yourself in such as when you experience the death of a loved one, the end of a relationship or friendship or a mental health crisis.
God is with us through all the things we experience. We are not alone when we walk through the hallway of grief or when we have serious health challenges. There is nothing to fear with an all-powerful God on your side. He knows us and He understands us.
Having this surety increases your resilience. You can face anything and keep going because God is with you. This doesn’t mean life will be easy, it means that it is doable because of God.
Praying Through Discouragement to Develop Resilience
Developing resilience is also predicated upon our ability to not be discouraged.
Discouragement is the culprit that will rob you of all your peace. It causes you to give up and lose hope and it weakens your faith.
Life hurts sometimes. We can easily find ourselves becoming discouraged when life doesn’t go the way we hoped or planned. It hurts. There is no other way to put it and there is no remedy or self-help book that can undo this truth. We must pray through the times when we feel discouraged.
You may feel guilty or even feel like you have a lack of faith when you experience discouragement. That’s why I’m so glad that the Lord blessed us with the Psalms. I love the Psalms because they deal with the rawest emotions. Psalm 88 is one example.
But to You I have cried out, O Lord,
And in the morning my prayer comes before You.
14 Lord, why do You cast off my soul?
Why do You hide Your face from me?Psalm 88:13-14
Psalm 88 is a Psalm of the sons of Korah, a contemplation of Heman the Ezrahite. You can see his raw emotion, his discouragement. This Psalm is a prayer for deliverance. It’s real. God knows we will face challenges that cause us to feel like the writer of this Psalm.
The most powerful thing you can do in any circumstance is to cry out to God. You can be real with God. Your friends and loved ones can’t read your mind, but God can. He already knows the depths of your heart.
Your resilience is developed by taking your cares to Him continually and having the confidence and faith that He not only hears you but answers you. Psalm 42:11 gives us a remedy for discouragement; it is simply to put our hope in God.
Why are you cast down, O my soul?
And why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God;
For I shall yet praise Him,
The help of my countenance and my God.Psalm 42:11
When life seems to have you in the boxing ring beating you down, pray. Pour out your soul to the One who hears and answers. Place God’s word in places where you will see it every day.
The first step in developing a spirit of resilience is placing your trust in Jesus and accepting Him as your savior. Then do what God says in Joshua 1:9, “Be strong and courageous, do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”
Until Next Time,
GROW YOU. GOD’S WAY.
Sherrhonda😍
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