Why is it so Hard to be Resilient?

By Chad Robichaux

In a broken and chaotic world, most people are anything but resilient in the face of adversity. We are daily bombarded by things that fight against our ability to remain steadfast during times of distress, betrayal, hurt, and loss. So much in the world pulls us down from a position of strength and resilience and out of the roles in which God intended us to live. It was not, however, meant to be this way! The reason it is so difficult to live a resilient life has nothing to do with our physical or mental toughness and everything to do with understanding who we were created to be.

If we were to take a trip to the firing range for a period of instruction on the best way to engage targets with our rifle, a qualified instructor would cover several factors that would lead to our success. One of the major factors would be to clearly see the target. We might laugh if an instructor actually pointed this out, but it is impossible to hit something that you cannot see! In the military, we even talk about the dangers of TRYING to hit a target that cannot be clearly seen. As common sense as this is, it is amazing how many people go through life trying to hit a target that they cannot see! When life knocks us off course, it is impossible for us to get back to a place that we’ve never even defined. Since we don’t clearly understand who we were created to be, we can’t get back to that place when we find ourselves lost and without direction. Figuratively speaking, we are shooting at a target that we cannot see and then wondering why we continue to miss.

This is the heart of the problem with living a resilient life. If resilience is “bouncing back” or “re-aligning when we get off course,” this becomes impossible to accomplish if we do not understand to what, exactly, we are aligning. Our culture constantly tells us how men and women should act and what their roles should be. The reality, though, is that the definitions we are given constantly shift since the culture providing those definitions lacks a standard on which to base them. And so we chase an identity that lacks a point on which to re-align when things fall apart. This causes us to either live without identity, or to allow our past or other experiences to define who we are.

For a person to be resilient, a fundamental truth must be understood: we were all created with a very specific design. We were created to be leaders in our homes and communities, contributing to our world and society in a meaningful way. This will look different from person to person, of course, but we must embrace the fact that our lives have purpose and can make an impact beyond daily survival. Instead of allowing ourselves to become overwhelmed by events of the past, we need to live every day to fulfill the potential that we have been

Those who are resilient are those who align their lives to the blueprint for life given by their Creator. They follow the example set forth by Jesus in His birth, life, death, and resurrection. Wherever you find yourself today, whether in a moment of crisis or in a place of relative stability, both the path forward and the foundation to a resilient life are found in alignment to the blueprint of life.

If what you are doing isn’t working, maybe it’s time to do something different!