Matthew 5:4, Psalm 147:null, Psalm 34:18, Revelation 21:1-8, 2 Corinthians 1:3-12, Romans 8:18-28, John 11:null, 2 Thessalonians 3:16, John 14:27, 1 Peter 5:7, Daniel 6:, Psalm 46:, Psalm 23:, Job 1:, Job 2:, 2 Samuel 11:, 2 Samuel 12:
If you ever travel to Jerusalem and are looking for sites to see, beyond all the ‘must-see’ sites related to Ancient Israel, the Temple Mount, and the sites associated with Jesus, you might venture to...
In his book Unshakeable Faith , Max Lucado shares a true story about a friend who competed in an Ironman Triathlon in Lake Placid, New York. You can compete in Ironman races around the world in p...
In spite of everything I shall rise again: I will take up my pencil, which I have forsaken in my great discouragement, and I will go on with my drawing.
Dr. Albert Schweitzer, who famously left his renowned practice in Switzerland to become a medical missionary in Africa, was hosting a group of European visitors at his hospital in Lambarene, French Eq...
Romans 8:18, Revelation 19:16, Matthew 2:2, John 18:36-37, Revelation 17:14, Zechariah 9:9, Isaiah 9:6, Psalm 24:7-10, Colossians 1:15-20, Matthew 21:1-11, Mark 11:1-11, Luke 19:28-40, John 12:12-16
In Romans 8:18, Paul describes the future of those who persevere in the faith: “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us....
Proverbs 12:18, Proverbs 15:4, Proverbs 18:21, Matthew 12:36-37, Ephesians 4:29, James 3:5-6
I am not a mountain climber, but a few years ago I had the idea that I might want to climb seriously, so I started to read and to train. I’ve climbed a few glacier-covered mountains in the northwester...
Resilience for faith leaders is the ability to wisely persevere toward the mission God has put before them amid both the external challenges and the internal resistance of the leader’s followers.
Ephesians 3:16-17, Colossians 2:6-7, John 15:5, Jeremiah 17:7-8, Psalm 1:1-3
A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I made the long drive from San Antonio, Texas, to Pasadena, California, where we now reside. We passed through hundreds of miles of southwestern desert, most of whic...
Resilience is the virtue that enables people to move through hardship and become better. No one escapes pain, fear, and suffering. Yet from pain can come wisdom, from fear can come courage, from suffe...
Consider the banyan tree, a remarkable species found in India and other subtropical regions. As it grows, its sprawling branches become increasingly heavy. But instead of breaking under their own weig...
1 Samuel 16:1-13 , Habakkuk 2:2-3, Matthew 17:20, Romans 5:3-5 , Philippians 4:6-7 , Psalm 42:11
In Circle of Quiet , Madeleine L’Engle describes how her young adult novel A Wrinkle in Time was dismissed by eight publishers before it eventually landed with the publishing house of Farra...
My first call to ministry was in Eastern Washington state. It turned out to be one of the most prolific winemaking regions in the country. One of the things I learned from a local winery was really qu...
During the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Japanese gymnast Shun Fujimoto broke his right knee while competing in the floor exercise. At the time, Japan and the Soviet Union fielded the world's ...
I recently heard a story about a race in which one runner had a significant lead over the rest of the field. As the man rounded the final turn, the crowd roared as he inched closer and closer to the f...
A. Parnell Bailey visited an orange grove where an irrigation pump had broken down. The season was unusually dry and some of the trees were beginning to die for lack of water. The man giving the tour ...
James Stockdale and what is now known as the Stockdale Paradox comes from his experience as a prisoner of war for seven years during the Vietnam War. The Stockdale Paradox, made famous in Jim Collins’...
When John Stuart Mill—the influential philosopher and political economist—arrived at Thomas Carlyle's door that evening, his face drained of color, bearing the devastating news that the manuscript...
1 Corinthians 15:53-58, Matthew 5:3-12, Luke 6:20-22, 1 Corinthians 15:53-58
In his thoughtful book, Our Good Crisis: Overcoming Moral Chaos with the Beatitudes , Jonathan K. Dodson describes one of the keys to understanding the beatitudes: live faithfully now, experience...
In an essay on friendship, the renowned poet Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “My entire success, such as it is, is composed of particular failures.” There’s a deep truth in that line—one many of us need to...
In the desert outside of Tucson, scientists dreamed up an experiment to re-create the conditions of earth for space, when and if the earth could not be made great again. The biosphere was a little wor...
In her book, Feminine Appeal , Carolyn Mahaney pontificates on the relationship between God’s providence and the guilt we often experience as parents who often fall short in our parenting: We can ...
Building an antifragile faith takes time. It can’t be rushed. Consider this: It takes (on average) around twelve to eighteen months to construct a new single-family home in America. This process incl...
There are going to be broken times when you feel as if everything is under demolition. When things feel unresolved or ruined inside of you. When the only thing you might have the strength to do is thr...
Everyone wants it. It’s the thing that fuels what we do. It’s the thing that stimulates courage and perseverance. It’s what gets you through the tough times and keeps you from quitting. It’s hard to b...
Micah 6:8 , Isaiah 58:6-7, Jeremiah 29:7, Matthew 25:35-40, James 2:14-17, Psalm 82:3-4
The most resilient of Christians are, in addition to their church engagement, also active in the world where God has placed them; they deeply concern themselves with poverty; they work to reverse inju...
I’m not sure that I could have articulated the ground rules for the search for resilience the way I understand them today, but I must have intuited them nevertheless. Some of the basic ideas were thes...