Resolution for 2015

I sit in a business meeting downtown, listening to a presentation on change management. Along with other participants, I take a brief resiliency test, and my score surprises me.

Apparently, I’m more resilient than I thought. Or than I often feel.

Since that day, I haven’t been able to get the idea of resilience out of my mind. It’s even made its way into my Bible reading, connecting with stories and characteristics of faith. And although it’s already the end of January and my New Year’s resolutions haven’t yet made their ways into written goals, I know how I want to live in 2015.

I want to be vigilant. Diligent. Resilient.

These are strong words, hard words, action words. Resilience means to spring back, rebound, recover readily. Looking back over my life, I see the many things from which I’ve recovered: deep disappointment, emotional hurt, relational conflicts, grief, and depression. Looking forward to the coming year, I see opportunities for vigilance and diligence to produce yet more resiliency.

And more patience, as the book of James says. Patience, when it has completed its work, leads to completion, or maturity.

The goals I’ve mentally identified will definitely require diligence. When I feel like quitting, they will require vigilance. And when I encounter obstacles, challenges, and disappointments along the way, they will require resilience.

Above all, they will require faith. As I’ve pondered resilience these last few weeks, God has reminded me how key faith is and ways I’ve failed to be vigilant in it. Now it is this idea of faith proved by action—resilient action—that I can’t get out of my mind.

Lord, let me live this year in great and greater faith, evidenced by the diligent faithfulness of a committed heart. Amen.