Endurance and thriving

Yesterday we established that part of experiencing joy, patience, and endurance, as people of faith, is consciously choosing the long-term perspective that God is actively at work to remove hardship. We learn to use this lens to remind ourselves that our hardships are part of a version of creation that is fading away (albeit slowly, too slowly). In this way, we find joy in anticipating the end of God’s work.

But what does that have to do with today? How might we thrive in the present?

First we should ask, what do we mean by thriving? Under what circumstances would you consider yourself to be thriving? Is thriving all about having desirable circumstances? I’d suggest not, because life will never offer totally desirable circumstances. Some things will be desirable, some things won’t be. This is just how life goes.

Thriving is not just about removing negative things from life, but being people who respond to negative events with courage, grace, and dignity. It is about being people who can speak back to the tragedy of life, instead of being people lose their identity in response to suffering, or who become defined by that suffering. What I mean is, it’s possible for life to smack us in the face without losing our sense of who we are. It’s not easy, but it’s possible. That is the essence of thriving. It is the essence of contentment and joy. When Paul says he can do all things through Christ, I believe this is what he means.

How do we become those kinds of people?

I’ll speak on that tomorrow.