The Road of Resilience
“Try not to become a man of success. Rather, become a man of value.”
— Albert Einstein
For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
(Mark 8v36, KJV)
The world's most elite athletes live by a strict training schedule built around a concept called periodization.
The gist is that they train strategically so they arrive at their most important competition (like the Olympic Games) in the best possible physical condition. The goal is for maximum fitness and minimum fatigue to coincide.
Periodically, I make a 30-minute pilgrimage to the church of a mentor of mine who pastors in the suburbs of the city I call home. Our routine is fairly consistent: I walk into his office, notebook in hand, and just sit and listen.
Over the years, his words of wisdom have been like water to my parched soul.
Recently, I gathered five other pastors for a virtual meeting with this wise sage. We asked him a litany of questions, but the final one was this: "As someone who has pastored faithfully in one place for 32 years, what would you say to those of us who are just beginning in the pastoral vocation?"
He sat back for a moment, then said he wanted to talk to us about resilience.
"Resilience," he said, "is growing stronger as you grow older."
He asked us to conjure up the deepest desires within us, the secret things we had been praying about. The things we'd be embarrassed, even ashamed, to admit we were asking God for.
"Now, imagine God gave you all of those things. If God did the very things you're praying for Him to do…would it crush you?"
I haven't been able to stop thinking about that question.
Often, God's seeming silence in my life feels like a frustrating denial of what I think—what I know—is best for me.
But what if it isn't?
What if God's patience in provision is actually His kindness, keeping me from being run over by more than I can handle?
When John the Baptist's disciples complained that the crowds were leaving him to follow Jesus, John replied, "A person can receive only what is given them from heaven" (John 3v27, NIV).
It makes me think about our culture's obsession with achievement. Achievement has become one of our primary markers of status and importance. We are constantly bombarded with pressure to do more, be more, and excel more.
The danger, I fear, is that many in my generation will peak too early.
What if, in our pursuit of God's best, we actually end up being crushed by the world's worst?
The spiritual writer Pete Scazzero often talks about how the most fruitful decade of our lives is our 60s, followed by our 50s, then our 70s.
The problem is that many of us in our 30s are living like we're not going to see 40.
That conversation challenged me to reconsider my pace.
Am I pursuing faithfulness that cultivates lasting fruit? Or am I pursuing achievement that cultivates fleeting success?
The latter certainly sounds appealing, but it is often an empty pursuit.
Achievement addicts but rarely satisfies.
Rather than producing gratitude and contentment, it creates an insatiable thirst for more—for the next thing to…achieve.
Perhaps that's why Jesus famously said, "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" (Mark 8v36, KJV).
As it turns out, we can spend many years achieving much and producing little.
The fruit of who we're becoming matters far more than the accolades of a world that is passing away.
And fruit is the aim for a disciple of Jesus, according to the Man Himself: "I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you" (John 15v16, NIV, emphasis added).
The question I've been wrestling with since that conversation is how to cultivate this sort of fruit, fruit that will last.
How does one become an attentive, attuned, Spirit-led person?
The answer is slow, steady work. When it comes to maturation, there's no substitute for time.
“Resilience is growing stronger as you grow older.”
My peak is still decades away.
So today, I'm choosing to release the pressure to do more, be more, and excel more. Instead, I'm choosing to embrace being 30 and all that it entails.
I'm choosing to slow down, to unhurry, to relax, to be quiet and still, and, hopefully, to experience just a bit more growth on the path from fledgling root to fruitful tree.
I'm choosing to live this day…as it is.
And I'm choosing to live the next day the same way.
"A long obedience in the same direction."
Talk soon,