Consider Aesop’s fable, in which a mighty oak tree asked a reed, “Why do you not plant your feet deeply in the ground, and raise your head boldly in the air as I do?” The reed responded, “I am content...
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a best-selling statistician, argues that it is not even mere resilience we need, but what he calls antifragility . He groups things into three categories. First, fragile...
The novel Martin Chuzzlewit , written by Charles Dickens, is one of his least successful works, though Dickens himself commented to a friend that he believed it was his greatest work up to its pu...
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...
Daniel 1:8, Genesis 37:39–50, Exodus 2:4, 14–17, Matthew 4:1–11, 2 Corinthians 11:23–29, Psalm 46:
Resilience is not something that can be mustered in a moment of “rising to the occasion.” It is formed over a long period before the crisis of testing so that it can continue the transformation during...
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...
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 ...
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...
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...
Resilience is not about becoming smarter or tougher; it’s about becoming stronger and more flexible. It’s about becoming tempered. Which takes us back to the blacksmith’s shop. Tempered. Let the word ...
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...
I was listening to a show on the National Geographic channel. Two deep-sea diving experts were discussing the physics of a submarine. I found it fascinating that every square inch of a submarine’s hul...
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...
James 1:2-4, Romans 5:3-5, 1 Peter 1:6-7, 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, Isaiah 40:31
It’s human nature to resist change—particularly when it comes in the form of adversity or challenges. But change is inevitable, and developing the trait of resilience helps us not only survive change,...
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...
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...
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.
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...
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...
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 ...
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...
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...
As a baby, Albert Einstein caused his parents some concern. His head seemed disproportionately large, and he did not start speaking until he was three. As a young man, his career faced setbacks, in...
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....
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.
The word resilience derives from the Latin term resilire , which means “to recoil or rebound,” and made its debut in the English language in 1627. The first entry in the Oxford English Dictionary...