Taken from John Ortberg’s, “If You Want to Walk on Water, You Have to Get Out of The Boat”
Compiled by Aly
For many of us, it has been a season of facing storms of all sorts.
I happened to pull a book off my shelf given to me a year or two ago.
Today’s chapter talked about resilience and how we can grow through these seasons. Below I share some of the gems I took away from this chapter.
“Your heart is revealed and your character forged when life does not turn out the way you had planned…. It is in the act of facing the storm that you discover what lies inside you and decide what lies before you.”
I love that quote because even if we do not like what we discover, we still have a choice as to who and how we will be going forward.
Three key characteristics of people who are resilient:
- Resilient people continually seek to reassert some command and control over their destiny rather than seeing themselves as passive victims.
- Resilient people have a larger than usual capacity for what might be called moral courage – for refusing to betray their values, even when tempted to compromise.
- Resilient people find meaning and purpose in the storm/in their suffering.
- Each of these qualities grows from a strong reliance on God.
- Resilient people exercise control rather than passively resign.
- Faith believes that with God, we are never helpless victims.
Another favorite Ortberg quote:
“Never try to have more faith – just get to know God better. And because God is faithful, the better you know Him, the more you’ll trust Him.”
People who triumph over adversity reassert a sense of command over their future. Instead of becoming passive, they focus as much attention as possible on whatever possibilities for control remain.
- For prisoners of war, it was finding secret ways to communicate with one another despite being isolated. Their bodies had been captured but their spirits had not.
- For Joseph, sold into slavery by his own brothers, he chose to apply himself in his situation and became promoted to overseer of Potiphar’s whole house.
- Quitting is always easier than enduring… over the long haul, leaving easily has a tendency to produce people who live in a pattern of giving up. Do not easily leave/give up.
- Growth happens when you seek or exert control where you are able to rather than giving up in difficult circumstances. It happens when you wholly decide to be faithful in a situation that you do not like and cannot understand….keep walking… you discover that you are never alone… the Lord is also with you.
Resilient people remain committed to their values:
- Loyalty to values even when it means suffering is a powerful catalyst for character formation.
- When we are struck by sadness or desolation… we are in the most dangerous place.
- Sin is always a substitute for legitimate suffering. It is an attempt to obtain pleasure that does not rightfully belong to me or evades the pain that does. Sooner or later you have to turn and face the pain that makes the temptation so attractive. Sooner or later, you have to run to God.
- Joseph is wrongfully accused by Potiphar’s wife because he would not compromise his loyalty to Potiphar. He is thrown into prison. The Lord did not spare Joseph from prison. But, the Lord was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love; he gave him favor in the sight of the chief jailor.
Resilient people find meaning and purpose in the storm:
- Everything can be taken away from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.
- Sometimes God comes, not in those moments when we are most lifted up, but when we are down in the lowest place of vulnerability and fear.
- When life doesn’t turn out the way we plan, we can forget that other people face disappointment too. Your world can become so small that your pain is the only pain you notice. This is the death of the heart, the loss of meaning…. Self-preoccupation is actually self-defeating and produces loneliness.
- In prison, Joseph found meaning in a very simple way – by helping a couple of cellmates. Joseph could easily have become isolated, focusing on his own disappointment. But Joseph realizes that he is not the only one for whom life has not turned out according to plan. He treats disgraced prisoners like human beings – he notices them and expresses genuine interest in them. Joseph’s suffering gave him eyes of compassion.
“Because Joseph did not quit, he set in motion the development of his potential – the deepening of his faith and endurance – that would one day enable him to become the most effective leader in Egypt and fulfill the part God intended for him to play in the rescue of his family and the redemption of the world.”
Think of Yeshua/Jesus: crowds mocked him, friends abandoned him, Peter denied him, Judas betrayed him, soldiers crucified him, and his body was laid in a tomb – one more dreamer, one more young man whose life turned out to be a disappointment. Until… on the third day… he woke up feeling good. Ultimate resilience. Ever since that third day, whatever bad news may enter your life has no power to separate you from God.
Comments