Since 2007 I’ve been interested in the study of human resilience.
I’ve read a bunch of books, met with some national experts, and I’ve been to days and probably even weeks of training.
I’ve also put together my own training and field tested it in Iraq, with kids during covid, with businesses and non-profits.
I believe that training in resilience is a balanced and biblical way to maximize a thriving life.
I often use the illustration of a wall outlet to describe the benefits of resilience training.
A normal outlet is tied to a 15-amp circuit.
Amps are basically how much electricity is flowing through the wire…like water volume through a hose.
If you plug in something, like an oven, that draws maybe 30 amps into a 15-amp outlet…it will throw the breaker…or it should.
This can prevent a fire caused by too much current flowing through a wire that’s not able to handle it.
Resilience training, can in the long run, increase your capacity.
It can help you become a 20-amp person if you are currently able to handle 15 amps of life stress or load.
You can learn to trust God more, practice good mental and physical faithfulness, and develop healthier relationships…all this increases your capacity to handle life’s challenges over time.
But if today you need 20 amps and you only have 15, well then you need short term help…resilience practices can help you see where you might decrease the demand.
Maybe you are spending 5 amps on worry…or you need a nap…or you need to phone a friend…or read Scripture and remember what is true.
All this is why I believe that training in resilience has long-term and short-term benefits.
But here’s the catch…Resilience is about maximizing faithfulness to God it’s not about getting to the place where you are so strong, so resilient…that you don’t need him.
I have friends who are very high capacity, very resilient people…but no one has infinite capacity.
Everyone, no matter how much you train, no matter how resilient you become…will come to a place where the demands on their life are greater than their own capacity.
You are going to throw a breaker, what then?
Your best, will someday, and maybe on a lot of days, not be enough.
Do we give up training, is it a waste of time?
No!
We are training to learn to be faithful…we are not training to be independent of God.
Resilience is a means to an end, the end, the goal of our lives…is to be found faithful.
When our best is not enough…at that point, when the breakers are thrown…we want to have trained to trust God and not self…not our own resilience.
As we sit in the dark, with the power out, at the end of our own capacity…we want to have trained to throw ourselves fully on the mercy of God.
Today we are in Matthew 26:36-46…turn there in your bibles as I read. (pause)
Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he told the disciples, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” Taking along Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. He said to them, “I am deeply grieved to the point of death. Remain here and stay awake with me.” Going a little farther, he fell facedown and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” Then he came to the disciples and found them sleeping. He asked Peter, “So, couldn’t you stay awake with me one hour? Stay awake and pray, so that you won’t enter into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Again, a second time, he went away and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.” And he came again and found them sleeping, because they could not keep their eyes open. After leaving them, he went away again and prayed a third time, saying the same thing once more. Then he came to the disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? See, the time is near. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Get up; let’s go. See, my betrayer is near.”
Gethsemane means oil-press.
It was an olive garden on the slopes of the mount of Olives and a regular place where Jesus met with his disciples.
Peter, James and John were asked by Jesus to go farther than the others, into the garden, to give him support.
It is tragically ironic that it was these three who had assured Jesus that they were fully ready for any and everything that would come their way…they were ready, they said, even to die for him.
The fact is, they couldn’t even stay awake on this night when their friend and master most needed them.
The translation, “I am deeply grieved” doesn’t come close to expressing the Lord’s anguish.
The word, “perilupos”, means to be literally surrounded by sorrow.
Peri…as in “perimeter.”…means around.
This is a kind of sorrow that is all encompassing, surrounding Jesus from every direction.
He is feeling the weight of sorrow that feels like it will kill him.
This is no hyperbole, no verbal exaggeration…I have, so far in my life, one time, felt emotions so deeply that I thought it might physically kill me.
One day I felt that if my heart didn’t slow down as it raced with anxiety, I was sure it would stop beating.
It was a terrible day.
I am not saying that I felt anything near what Jesus did…I am saying that we must try to understand and feel how deep his anguish was on that night.
He was not the mighty Son of God, impervious to human feelings and suffering in that dark garden.
He was fully the Son of God taking on human form, suffering in every way just as we do.
He told the three, who had followed him deeper into the garden to stay where they were and stay awake with him…he wanted the assurance of human companionship.
There is nothing lonelier than to be all alone in the dark night of the soul.
This was as true for Jesus as it is for us.
Jesus went a bit farther into the garden to be alone.
Why?
Because there are places where no one else can go with us.
We want to know that others are standing by for us, but only we can go there.
There, alone with just his Father for company he fell facedown.
Others would sometimes fall facedown before Jesus; this is first time he is said to fall on his face.
This physical posture is another indication of the power of the emotions in that moment.
“My Father” he prayed…this is intimate, personal.
We only know the content of this prayer because Jesus, post resurrection, must have told Peter and the others about it.
Maybe when he was restoring and forgiving Peter for his betrayal.
“My father” he prayed, “if possible, let this cup pass from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”
Such a remarkable prayer, a supreme model for us in our times of need.
He went back to his disciples…wanting, no doubt…to gain comfort from seeing them praying for him…as he struggled so deeply.
Instead, he found them sleeping…adding discouragement to his desperation.
We have all felt the loneliness even in the midst of friends or family…when we realize…
They can’t fully understand what is going on with me…they can try…
No one can really enter into this with me like I need them to.
We talked about this last summer when we looked at the Scripture that says, “Meanwhile we groan.”
Even with the closest of friends and family…in this life, we will sometimes feel the sting of loneliness…it is a problem that will only be fully fixed in the life to come.
This is no excuse for the Lord’s friends…they failed him, they failed to rouse themselves and to try to enter in to his suffering.
Jesus went back to the lonely place again; he had to feel even more alone.
He prayed this time, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.”
The cup that he was drink, was the wrath of God poured out on him for our sin.
He came back to the three to find them sleeping again.
Then he went back to the solitary place and prayed the anguished prayer a third time.
Jesus was wrestling in prayer, praying the same prayer again and again…he wasn’t bargaining with God…he was relating to him at the deepest level.
“Let’s go” he finally said to his sleepy friends… “It’s time, my betrayer is near.”
Because of another of his closest friends had sold him out…it’s only getting worse for the Lord.
There are three things I want us to take away from this passage.
- Jesus is fully God and fully man
- Jesus can sympathize with us in our weakness
- We can train to trust God just like he did.
- Jesus is fully God and fully man
Scripture presents Jesus as a single person with two distinct natures.
There is only one like him…he is a true singularity.
He is fully divine, and he is fully human.
The Bible presents Jesus as a man…feeling hunger and thirst, being born a physical birth…and in the garden and in other places, like at the death of a friend…feeling sorrow.
It also shows him doing what only God can do, calming storms, raising the dead, and forgiving sins.
John 1 says that the cosmos creator took on human flesh.
Scripture teaches that while he took on human flesh, he remained fully God.
While he took on humanity, he did not give up any of his divine attributes; he remained fully God even while being fully human.
You can study this if you like, there are whole books written on it.
Scripture simply presents it as a fact, without trying to over explain it.
The fact of Jesus being fully man and fully God has been a stumbling block for many over the years.
It has led to the development of false religions and cults where they pick one nature of the Lord over the other in order to make the doctrine more palatable and more understandable.
But we can and must believe it, because it is true.
It is neither necessary nor possible to fully understand it…because he is God.
If you can hold God fully in your mind, I assure you it is not God you are holding there.
This doesn’t mean that God hasn’t given us true truth…he has.
It simply means that we are to believe the truth as God has given it and not demand that we fully understand it before we believe it.
I’ve said this many times…but we don’t make this kind of unreasonable demand in other areas of our lives.
-No one understands light, but it doesn’t keep us from throwing a switch and not bumping into the furniture.
But the fact that we cannot fully understand Christ’s nature, doesn’t mean we cannot correctly understand it.
Getting the doctrine, the truth right, is important because how we live flows from what we believe.
If we believe what is not true, we will try to live outside of reality…with bad consequences.
It is also very important to understand that we do not seek orthodoxy (right doctrine) in order to win debates or to look smart.
We do so in order to love, obey, and honor God…this most often shows up in how we love others.
If your theology makes you hard, arrogant and separates you from others…I can assure you it not orthodox.
Sure, it may be technically correct…but it is unorthodox in its impact.
Ortho means “straight” or “right” as in orthodontics…straight teeth.
Doxa, means glory, honor or praise…as in “doxology”… words of praise.
So, orthodoxy means “straight, right praise.”
In Col 1, Paul prayed that God would grant them knowledge, wisdom, and understanding…why?
“In order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work.”
This is why we want to know and to believe the truth of the gospel.
To know and love God and others…to bear God honoring fruit.
So, Jesus is fully God and fully human…this means his death on the cross is able to accomplish our salvation but for today, I want to focus on another important implication of his divine/human nature.
That being, Jesus is able to sympathize with us in our own weakness.
- Jesus is able to sympathize with us in our weakness
His suffering in the garden and on the cross were not mere shows, he wasn’t play acting (pretending like it hurt)…his anguish was real.
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. Hebrews 4
A man named Thomas Goodwin wrote a book in 1651 called, “The Heart of Christ in Heaven towards Sinners on Earth.”
The book is based primarily on a single text, the one we just read, Hebrews 4:15 and of that text he wrote this:
“I have chosen this text, because it, more than any other speaks of God’s heart towards sinners. It takes our hands, lays them on Christ’s chest, and lets us his feel his beating heart for us.”
His being able to “sympathize” means to “co-suffer with”
Someone who has suffered in a specific way might say as someone tries to connect with them… “Keep your sympathy, I don’t want it!”
I’ve heard that said before.
But I have seen that if others have suffered the same way, say a soldier who lost a limb in combat connecting with another combat wounded veteran…they see the attempt to connect very differently.
This is not sympathy as pity, but as understanding, suffering with.
“I get it.”
“Yeah, you actually do.”
The great difference between Christ’s suffering and ours is that his was never with sin, ours is never without sin.
This doesn’t mean that all aspects of how we suffer are sinful, but it does mean that in all our suffering, we remain sinful humans…our inclinations, our emotions, our perspective on God and others and on our suffering is always going to be tainted by our sin nature.
So, in our suffering, we don’t merely need or find emotional comfort in the fact that Jesus understands…or like the Super Bowl ads, “he gets us.”
We need much more than to be understood by Jesus, or to feel emotional comfort in the fact that he “gets us”
Of course he gets us, me made us.
Hebrews 4:16 gives us the application of Christ being able to sympathize and it is practical and powerful and not merely emotional help.
Let us then (since this is true) approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
Grace is not God feeling sorry for us…it is God giving his power to us.
Grace is the power of God to be save us.
Graces is the power of God, at work in us, to live a faithful life…here, it is the power to live faithfully in our time of great need.
We can go to Jesus when we suffer, when our best is not enough, when the breaker throws…and find grace to help us.
What we want is a ton of grace to get us out of this dark place completely.
What we get is just enough grace for this moment, then the next, then the next.
We want enough grace to not have to trust God so much.
We get sufficient grace, enough, just enough.
If you have not lived in this moment-by-moment barely sufficient grace…it is excruciating…but in those times Jesus is training us to trust.
But we need not wait until our time of great need, before we train to trust God.
Proverbs 6 gives the wisdom of an insect in the natural world, proactively living prepared.
And compares it to the folly of the man who does not live prepared.
Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander,
no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest.
How long will you lie there, you sluggard? When will you get up from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest— and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man.
Living in a state of readiness is much more than stockpiling food for some disaster.
It is about whole life readiness…in the New Testament it is primarily about spiritual readiness.
Making the kind of choices today that will make me spiritually ready for what tomorrow might bring.
Jesus did not wake on the morning of the dark night of the soul and hope he would be ready.
He had trained his entire life to life in dependence on the Spirit.
“Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.”
Luke 5:16
This was his life pattern.
If the Lord Jesus knew that he needed to train, that he needed to build in time to be alone with the Father, to wait on him…how can we imagine that we will live the prepared life if we fail to do the same?
We cannot live rushing through life to death…and think that we will be prepared to die.
And if we are not living our lives prepared to die…we are not going to live making the most of our lives.
Jesus can sympathize with us and yes we can find grace to help us in our time of need…and yes we can train to trust just like he did.
Back to where we began…resilience training it not trying to be strong enough to not need God.
It is training to be faithful with whatever God brings into our lives.
There is no model for human thriving that does not include the spiritual pillar, even the DOD realizes this.
But for the Christian this isn’t about vague generalities of spirituality, and the search for meaning…it is about training to know, love, and trust Christ.
- We are able to train to trust God just like Jesus did.
I’ve said it many times because it is both memorable and true,
“If you want to go fast go alone, if you want to go far, go together.”
This is a catchy version of the biblical principle that God has designed us such that we need each other.
We looked one Sunday recently at the Scripture that tells us that we are to “see to it that we are not hardened and deceived by sin…and we are to do this by remaining in close, honest relationship with other believers.”
Now I want to give the balancing factor to that important truth.
Biblically we must not try to make a go of this Christian life alone…we are a body; each part needs the others…you cannot be resilient all by yourself.
But we must not neglect developing an intimate and personal relationship with Christ…one that is fully our own.
He has provided others to help us, but ultimately, we need him and the day will come when it will be just him and you.
Your friends and family may surround you on your final day, but no one can go with you as you pass into eternity.
Even before that final moment when it will be just you and God, there are times when you will be like Jesus in the garden, you have left friends your praying…
…and maybe they actually stay awake…but they can’t go with you into that deep place where it is only you and God.
If you are in a dark night of the soul…call out to friends, but don’t think you have no good friends just because they cannot give you all that you need.
When the breaker is thrown and you are in the dark…you may very well be exactly where God wants you right now.
Fully dependent on him.
Listen to what Paul said about this kind of experience in his own life.
Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it (some kind of physical suffering) away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong
2 Cor. 12:8
These are the times when the breaker throws, when the demands exceed your capacity.
Friends may come running, but they can’t fix this… Who can?
There is no fix, there is only grace to help in our time of need…and it is sufficient, just enough grace.
“God, I have nothing…my capacity is gone, no one can help me, my friends can’t come into this place with me…it is just you.”
What a terrible and wonderful place to be…because in that place, it really is just you and God…you find that he is enough.
Earlier on the night that Jesus went into the olive garden, he told his friends..
“Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me.”
John 16:32
He knew what was coming, it didn’t remove his agony, in some ways…it had to increase it.
We may think we want to know the future in terms of what will happen to us…I don’t.
Jesus knew and didn’t shrink back.
He knew, from experience, from his own training…that he was not going to be alone, his Father would be with him.
He also knew that on the cross, even his Father would turn his face away…but that is for another day.
Let me leave you with a final word of encouragement
As you train to trust God, as you develop an intimate relationship him…try to keep the necessary balance of head and heart.
In all healthy relationships there is actual content, data, truth that must be known about one another.
I cannot love Christy well if I don’t know actual facts about her…I must store important Christy data in my brain.
Sounds cold but it is true…to love her I must know real, true things about her.
At the same time, Christy is not a set of data points, she is a person…and I cannot love her if I don’t learn to connect with her on a personal, emotional, heart level.
In your own pursuit of a deep, personal, love relationship with God…keep this tension.
Don’t chase emotion void of theological fact…if you do, you will go off track, you will move away from knowing God.
The facts of your faith alone will sustain you when emotions and others fail you.
I met a man who in his younger years had played in a Christian band.
He realized that if he played his instrument in a certain way, he could get people in the audience to raise their hands, or to become more emotional…to “worship”
He would sometimes do this, intentionally, just to evoke these emotions…while becoming more skeptical himself.
This doesn’t mean emotion in worship or in our lives as a whole are wrong…it does mean that we must not give them more weight than they merit and we must not make them the measure of maturity.
On the other side, we must not believe that knowing stuff about God is the same thing as knowing God.
-Sure, read good books, read the Bible, listen to good podcasts (not bad ones, there are a lot of these)
*Quick side note…listen to older people who have lived life, make sure the ones you are listening to are practitioners with a track record…you are responsible for what you allow into your mind…it is shaping or misshaping you.
*Listen to people like John Lennox, 82 year old, 3 Phd’s in math and science…who has walked humbly and faithfully with God throughout his life.
-Don’t listen to arrogant and angry people…you will become more like who you let speak to your mind.
We want to know God and to live in his sufficient grace…we don’t chase emotion, though we will have it, and we don’t chase information, though we need it…we pursue him.
I recently enjoyed an emotional experience with God while I was on a trail at sunset
I was listening to a song full of good biblical content, I was remembering things God has revealed in Scripture and what he has done in my life.
It was beauty, nature, emotions, music, memory, truth, facts, history…all rolled up into one…I will remember that day for a long time…it will stand out for me.
Jesus trained to trust over his lifetime, he spent his whole life walking in the Spirit.
Jesus suffered deep anguish on his dark night of the soul, but he knew that he was not alone.
The facts of his faith, and the historical experiences of his life with the Father…are what allowed him to live in a state of readiness.
Jesus said…
Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.
John 14:21
We want to know the truth in order to obey the truth in order to love Christ well…to experience him in our lives.
This is how to live in a state of spiritual readiness…to be ready to trust Christ when your own power fails and leaves you in the dark…and this is going to happen for each of us.
We must not live in fear of it, we must live in a state readiness, preparing for it.
Even the training for this kind of readiness is meant to sweet and good.
Because we are training with Christ in order to trust him.