A Practical Guide for Transformative Growth Part 3Sample

Resilience

The first step in developing resilience is shifting from our posture of avoiding suffering to enduring suffering because we know it is doing a good work in us. Suffering leads to growth. To grow in resilience, we must become adept at hearing what God is saying to us through our suffering about how we need to evolve past the current version of ourselves.

Sometimes our avoidance of suffering looks very spiritual. It can be as trite as using the popular quip, “I’m too blessed to be stressed!” rather than admitting that you are overwhelmed and exploring what is happening in your soul. This type of behavior leads us into denial, repression, and superficial coping rather than deep transformation.

We want to take this even further to being joyful in suffering. How in the world do we do that?? Like Jesus. Jesus understood that His suffering ended with joy. Was Jesus happy to die on the cross? No. The joy in suffering I am talking about is not happiness about the pain that we feel. It is the ability to look past the light and momentary affliction, as heavy and never-ending as it may seem, and access the joy that awaits on the other side. It is a joy in the outcome of the process. If we can only see the glory being produced by our suffering. This is what Christ saw!

We must be so attached to the reality of our eternal destination that we are detached from the lesser realities of this world. All suffering is about this temporal life. Our joy is in eternity!