Hope in spite of disappointment
May 1 - May 5, 2023 | Always Peachy Devotionals | Bouncing Back Week 1
Do you know how to bounce back?
It can be difficult to stay positive when life keeps pounding you with trial after trial. Challenges keep coming, it seems, and the crazier the world gets, the darker the challenges are—and the more dire the consequences of failure.
And you can come at your obstacles with the power of positive thinking all day long, but unless your optimism is founded in something more powerful than the boulder in your path, eventually your reserve of emotional fortitude will run out.
So how do you endure disappointment with hope? How do you navigate failure with grace? How do you stay focused on God’s plan when it feels like God is the one who’s abandoned you?
Throughout the month of May, we’re going to be talking about resilience. That’s a pretty fancy word, though, isn’t it? Resilience isn’t really something we talk about a lot, but we do talk about having the ability to bounce back. And that’s all resilience is.
There are different kinds of resilience, of course, and everybody’s list will vary depending on who you talk to. But I narrow it down to four different types: Physical (healing from sickness), Mental (problem solving and creativity), Emotional (managing our feelings), and Social (connection to others).
In every instance, when you’re talking about bouncing back from a loss or a failure or a disappointment, you’re talking about one of these kinds of resilience. And the Bible has a lot to say about this, mostly because the entire process of becoming more like Jesus is becoming more resilient.
So this month, we’re going to talk about what resilience looks like in our lives and why it matters to God. We’re going to talk about some biblical examples of resilience that we can pattern our lives after. We’re going to learn strategies to use to build resilience in your life and how to live resiliently no matter what challenge you’re facing.
If you had to explain resilience to someone else, what would you tell them? The act of bouncing back after a loss can look very different depending on the person and the situation, but there are some key things to look for when you’re trying to quantify a resilient life. And that’s what we’re going to talk about this week:
May 1 - Overcoming hardship
May 2 - Pressing on
May 3 - Persevering through trials
May 4 - Enduring temptation
May 5 - Failing better
All of those are elements of living a resilient life. It’s all about facing difficulty repeatedly and not giving up, no matter what happens. Even when others fail you, you don’t quit. Even when you fail yourself, you don’t stop.
The verse we’re going to memorize this week is sort of a theme for people who know how to bounce back, Proverbs 24:16.
When you’re following Jesus, even when you stumble (because you will stumble), He will give you the strength to get up again so you can keep going. But for those who don’t rely on Jesus’ strength, they can only rely on themselves. And that won’t get them very far.
Fortunately, if you know Jesus, you have access to the source of unlimited hope. My prayer this month is that we’ll all learn a bit more about how to draw our strength from Jesus and how to lean on Him when life doesn’t go the way we planned.
Love you all.
Amy
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