It's A New Season-Embracing Change

For some change is easy and exciting to embrace. For others it takes an extra measure of grace and pulling from every internal resource to embrace changes on the horizon of life. 

It seems that the need for fluidity in our ever changing world has only increased. We all have taken time to reflect over the many twists and turns of 2020 and anxiously held tight to anything that we perceived as being solid. Now we are embarking on a questionable 2021 where many things look and feel the same as the last season, but there is one word that comes to mind. 

Resilience. Its definition is "being able to recover quickly from difficulty; toughness". No matter what happened in this last season of life I have watched so many thrive with resilience while at the very same time resiliency was still being developed in them. I love the thought of that. You can still thrive even as things are still being developed in you. I don't know about you, but I see areas of my life where I have been able to thrive with resiliency while other areas are on the struggle bus. 

We don't naturally obtain 100% resiliency to our realities-big or small. Some of our personalities and "makeup" can cause people to lean more towards being resilient quicker than others. For example, maybe you are a glass half full type of person or have more of a laid back personality. It may be easier for you to wrap your arms around change and lean in to the difficulties or challenges. Some with a different personality or outlook may run from those exact challenges or look at them with overwhelming dread. But no matter how much we may be naturally attuned to resiliency, there are still aspects that need stretching and growing. 

There is an old song that comes to mind that I sang as a young girl in Children's Church. "He's still working on me. To make me what I ought to be. It took Him just a week to make the moon and the stars, the sun and the earth and Jupiter and Mars. How loving and patient He must be, cause He's still working on me." Praise God that He still chooses to work on us. 

One of my core values is being a lifelong learner. I have heard it said many times that leaders are learners. Learning is essential for me to thrive in life and ministry, I must continue to learn and grow. I will say the same thing about resiliency. I don't want to find myself stagnant in my personal development-spiritually, mentally, or physically. One of the ways that I continue to stay engaged in learning is through choosing resilience when things don't go according to the way I had planned or expectations aren't met. The idea is to continually position myself to be able to flex or bounce back from challenges. Learning to be resilient when change comes takes intentionality and work.  Learning and growing equates to change which requires resiliency. 

One of the key factors to being able to be a more resilient person is to challenge your level of trust in God. I truly believe that trust and resiliency work hand in hand. Think about it for a minute, it is a lot easier to be resilient in the face of difficulty if I believe that good is on the other side. If I am truly walking in complete trust that God is good, He is for me, and He is always with me then the level of growth in terms of resiliency will be exponential. When I doubt that God is in control and His ways are always good and perfect, even if they are different than what I would have wanted it-you can trade thriving and being able to bounce back with anxiety which usually leads to me becoming stuck in a cycle of disfunction. Yes a lack of trust and anxiety is a form of disfunction. God created us to trust Him. 

Maybe you are like me and you struggle in the area of trust at times. You have seen God come through time and again, but you seem to continue finding yourself riddled with anxiety and unable to continue moving forward when things go less than according to plan. At the foundation of our lack of trust comes down to a lack of understanding the nature and character of Christ. We continue to believe the same lies the enemy whispered in Adam and Eve's ears-God isn't who He said He is. Tough pill to swallow, isn't it? Do we believe God to be a lier? Of course our immediate response is "absolutely not", but our lack of resiliency in difficulty and/or the anxiety we struggle with day to day tells a different story. We have to challenge our belief system. We have to consider the hard reality that our view of our Heavenly Father may not be accurate. Is He still good and sovereign over everything even when plans fail or change? 

Please don't assume that I am speaking in extremes. I do recognize and fully embrace the idea that there are times that anxiety is a direct response to chemical imbalances within our bodies. I am thankful for doctors and medicine that God has given us to help find balance again. But I do want to keep in mind that what we believe matters and how we grow in resiliency or not isn't exclusively determined by an imbalance in our physical bodies. I believe that in today's day and time it is easier for us to assume it is just a chemical imbalance rather than face the hard realities that our mind and hearts are running rampant because we have forgotten who God is. 

Resilience, learning, and complete trust are possible with God's help! 

Lord, help us to continue to learn and grow in resiliency. May our deep trust and dependance on You and who You are reflect how we respond when things don't go our way or there are challenges in front of us. We want to show the world how great You are and that You always have good planned for Your children, but first Lord help us believe it for ourselves. Forgive our unbelief. Challenge our mindsets. Give us wisdom with how to navigate difficulty. Continue to teach us how to be resilient and accept change when it comes our way. We want to trust You more. Amen.