Ep. 7 - Biblical Resiliency in the Face of Suffering

Could the secret to navigating life's storms lie hidden in ancient texts? We set sail on a journey through the concept of biblical resiliency, uncovering the profound ways in which this unspoken scriptural theme can empower us in modern times. Our discussion delves into the intricacies of resilience as both a naturally occurring trait and a skill honed through the fires of trial, all while framed within the context of Christian faith. The episode promises to cast a new light on enduring adversity, bolstered by familial ties, support networks, and the transformative power of spiritual practice.

As we navigate the waters of virtue ethics, our guide is the rich moral compass offered by New Testament teachings. We engage in a soul-stirring exploration of how virtue ethics and the development of Christ-like character are integral to strengthening our resilience. We dissect the wisdom found in Philippians 4, considering it as a beacon for Christians to reshape their thinking and cultivate the fruits of the spirit. This episode isn't just a theoretical treatise but a call to action, urging us to embrace virtues in service of both personal growth and the well-being of those around us.

Finally, we anchor our discourse in the collective experience of the Christian journey, examining how suffering can be both a crucible for character and a catalyst for community building. We draw inspiration from stories of perseverance and hope, such as those of Holocaust survivors, to illustrate resilience as a multifaceted trait that encompasses connection, kindness, and faith. This episode is a heartfelt invitation to embrace the strength found in our Christian communities, challenging the rise of individualism with the scriptural mandate to serve and love one another for the edification of all. Join us for a deep and enriching experience that promises to fortify your spiritual resilience.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Alright, everyone, welcome back to the Psycho and Theo podcast, the podcast where we discuss church culture, mental health and all things Bible related. I'm Sam, I'm Tom and we're looking forward to talking today about biblical resiliency. Biblical resiliency we will define the term resiliency because it is something that is talked about, definitely in the psychology world. I mean, this is a big part of mental health and also we have multiple, multiple examples in scripture where people display resiliency and, tim, you have some examples of kind of what we're going to look at when we look at scripture, because, oh, I've got lots A lot.

Speaker 1: 0:45

And it has to do with our faith, like part of the Christian faith, is developing this aspect of resiliency. But the terminology in scripture seems, and is actually, a lot different than what we see in the.

Speaker 2: 0:58

Yeah, I did it quick. Today we're going to search for resiliency in the Bible and it's not there, so I don't know what we're going to do.

Speaker 1: 1:05

Yeah, I know, I'm wondering what Old Testament.

Speaker 2: 1:08

Look, it's not in the Bible, so we're not going to talk about it.

Speaker 1: 1:11

As we found that through all our conversations.

Speaker 2: 1:14

Yeah, Jesus said nothing about resiliency.

Speaker 1: 1:16

Nothing about resiliency. I thought he'd have something there. Yeah, it's nothing.

Speaker 2: 1:19

You do word search, it's not there.

Speaker 1: 1:20

Yeah. Not in the red letters not in the black.

Speaker 2: 1:23

Yeah, right. Oh man, yeah, okay, so we'll get on this topic my job is to waste 10 to 15% of our time every episode. Going on 10 minutes, and so on.

Speaker 1: 1:37

But it adds a little flair to the podcast, so it's good. It's the quick thoughts that come to my mind.

Speaker 2: 1:42

Right yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:44

You know. What I have noticed, though, is that when we are talking through our points, it's having the questions that come up for me, so I don't know if you noticed in the last episode that we recorded, but I had a question like, well, what about this or what about that? And then you also did the same, as I was sharing a little bit about my position, so it was good.

Speaker 2: 2:03

Yeah, maybe we should press each other more.

Speaker 1: 2:06

Yeah, I think that's what people are doing too, as you're listening to the well, I don't know if I agree with that.

Speaker 2: 2:10

Oh, they're definitely doing that on socials.

Speaker 1: 2:12

Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah, we have a couple of shawls we have some new names.

Speaker 2: 2:18

All right, so let's get into resiliency.

Speaker 1: 2:20

Let's get into resiliency.

Speaker 2: 2:23

What is it? What is the? Well, I was going to ask you what the. Let's define what it is. So let's get into like a technical definition first and then we'll get into like a layman's definition.

Speaker 1: 2:34

Okay, you want to define it. You want me to kind of give the psychological understanding of what it is.

Speaker 2: 2:39

Yeah, yeah, let's, let's, well, let's give a definition first like a technical definition, and then I'll maybe talk about like what that is in layman's terms, and then maybe you talk about psychologically what it is.

Speaker 1: 2:52

Okay.

Speaker 2: 2:52

Yeah, that works Okay. So what is the technical definition?

Speaker 1: 2:57

So, essentially, there's a struggle and there's this idea of bouncing back and adapting well. So that is essentially how it's defined within the psychology world or counseling world is that you have a tribulation, a struggle, a stress or something that you experience, and resiliency is determined by how well you bounce back and adapt to your now current situation. So I mean, this is what the mental health field is all about is that people who develop strong resiliency have what are called protective factors, and those protective factors include your family, upbringing, the type of support system that you currently have. Personality plays a big role in that as well. So there's all these different factors that allow for you to bounce back from a difficult situation and adjust well to your new current circumstances. So that is essentially, but the key part there I looked.

Speaker 2: 3:55

I was looking at Webster's dictionary of resiliency and that is not the technical definition.

Speaker 1: 4:00

What was wrong, you know, wow, okay.

Speaker 2: 4:01

Okay, that's a very long technical.

Speaker 1: 4:03

Yeah, so what did Webster say?

Speaker 2: 4:06

Well, I actually was an highlight. I'm not looking at Webster, I just took a guess. Right Right Before we kind of get into like the psychological underpinnings of what resiliency is, you started to kind of get into that little bit with like family structure and things, layman's term. You actually kind of said something I was going to say, but that's the ability to bounce back. So resiliency is the ability to bounce back. You think of it like a basketball. You're dribbling a basketball, you throw it on the ground. It bounces back. It's got some air in it, okay. Another example would be like a weeble wobble. Did you ever have a weeble wobble growing up? You know what it is if I described it to you.

Speaker 2: 4:47

Someone in the audience is, like already saying, I know what a weeble wobble is A weeble wobble. Did you ever see those toys that? They were weighted in the bottom, but it was like a punching bag.

Speaker 2: 4:57

Yes, okay, yes, and so when you punched it, it would just roll over and hit the ground and it would just bounce right back, because the bottom of it was weighted and it was rounded, so it would just kind of like weeble wobble around and no matter how many times you hit it, it would just bounce back over and over. That is an example, I think, in layman's terms, of what resiliency is Is that you just bounce back. So you can't build resiliency without resistance.

Speaker 1: 5:22

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 5:23

Okay, so are we weeble wobbles by nature, or are we something else?

Speaker 1: 5:30

Oh, that's, a good question yeah.

Speaker 2: 5:33

Are we born with an age resiliency, or must we build it in ourselves? So that's a question for, I guess, for in a few minutes. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 5:41

No, I like that, I like that and the actual. I guess, if we get even more technical, there's what's known as the law of disruption.

Speaker 1: 5:49

Oh, here we go and reintegration, yeah, get into it and that's essentially I mean, that is the technical term for what you're referring to which is this idea of bouncing back. That's the disruption. So you have something that happens and you're bouncing back from that and reintegration is the adapting. Well, right, so how do I reintegrate back into my life to get some sense of normalcy? Right, because there's a state of equilibrium that every person's body, mind, soul, spirit is wanting to adjust to. Right, and, as we know, with the last, you know, I don't know decades or so, a couple of decades where there was this faith crisis where people would experience some level of stress, of tribulation that would make them just question their whole faith. You know it throws them off physically because you go through something very difficult, you know the loss of a family member, loss of a relationship, loss of a child, like all these different things, and then you just wait. How does this person bounce back from something like this?

Speaker 1: 6:54

And we have multiple examples throughout history of people bouncing back from struggle, and those people are an encouragement to us, because we know that everything in life is a struggle. But how you adapt after that shows a lot about where your trust lies, where your faith lies, and also just kind of the innate characteristics that start to get displayed, that all they needed was an opportunity to be displayed. So that happens with struggles. Not everyone responds the same, though, and I think that's the question that we have. Like you mentioned earlier, do people build this or is this something that's more innate? So let's look at some, I guess, characters in Scripture that experience something pretty strongly.

Speaker 2: 7:44

Well, okay. So before we do that, though, because the characters in the Bible are adults, okay, so they've had their life experiences. I think let's get to this question. Maybe Does the science or research answer the question Are we born with resiliency, or is it something that has to be cultivated?

Speaker 1: 8:05

Yeah, well, it's multifaceted, so you can cultivate it right. And the way you cultivate it is, you move towards the stressor Most of us because we are naturally seeking comfort, we seek safety, we seek comfort, we seek little resistance. Most people are wired that way. There are other people who are wired to move towards that right, to move towards resistance, to move towards danger, to move towards something that's going to push their limits. And you know, again, those are characteristics, personality traits, family dynamics, please, a huge role with that. So the research is mixed because, yes, you can have a character trait that it's easier for you to develop resiliency, but really you can develop it.

Speaker 1: 8:51

What you would want to measure is how do I approach stressors right? Do I run away from stressors or do I move towards them? You know, it's this whole idea of phobia right. Like when you do phobias, you do what's called exposure therapy, right, and you start off with something small that you could kind of take and then you slowly start to increase the magnitude of that when all of a sudden you see yourself in the face of a, you know, of a tarantula, because you've been minimally exposed to it. Now it doesn't have the same effect that it had before. I don't care what amount of.

Speaker 2: 9:23

Taylor Swift songs you will expose me to. I'm not doing it. You will not become a swifty.

Speaker 1: 9:28

I'm not doing it, okay, but that's a fear of yours that the audience should be impressed. No, so send in your CDs. Send in your signed CDs and close apparel. Send in your wear one for one of these episodes. Oh man, you ruined the NFL.

Speaker 2: 9:43

You ruined it. Okay, all right. So you asked about Bible characters, so let's back up a little. I liked what you said there. Let some people some of them did that help.

Speaker 1: 9:53

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 9:54

It totally feeds into what I was going to say. So the research shows that some people are just kind of wired with some sort of inbuilt like just ability or or what's the word. I'm looking for this position to run toward resistance. Others, they don't necessarily have that innate wiring in themselves, but that doesn't mean they can't acquire it, Okay, so if you maybe think you're one of those people where you're like I don't like running toward resistance, You're not hopeless, Okay and that's it. So it can be built, but some people just have it. You know a more natural it's fine to think of it like going to the gym.

Speaker 2: 10:35

Some people just have great genetics. They could eat Cheetos all day long and then when they go to the gym, it's like they get ripped with like two workouts, you know. It's like eight sit ups in and they have a six pack. Okay, all right, others of us have to work a long time, you know, and to maintain that, but it doesn't mean it's not impossible. It doesn't mean it's not possible, okay. So how do we think of this theologically? Well, we have to recognize first that the world is fallen, the world is broken. This is the logic, theology. One on one. Sin enters the world and the world is broken. That sin affects our genetics as well. Some people can be born with all kinds of different dispositions toward different vices. It could be you could be born with a disposition to alcoholism, a disposition to all the kinds of phobias that you talked about. I don't know if there's a Taylor Swift phobia that you could be born with he just created it.

Speaker 2: 11:34

Someone's going to go in the DSM, right, yeah. So in the fallen world where our genetics are affected people can the genetic code, our brain wire. Things can go wrong, if not in our genetics and neonatal development. Things can go wrong in our upbringing, where you might be raised in a home that you experience trauma in some sense and that can actually affect your brain wiring as well to hamper your ability to be resilient. Okay, so the world is fallen and broken, and so people. People have different experiences and different genetics, so you're not everyone is going to be starting on the same starting line when it comes to building resilience in their life. That's kind of the first starter I think we need to recognize.

Speaker 1: 12:19

Yeah, yeah, and I like the point that you made about about exercise and working out, because, yeah, there are some people who are just naturally inclined. They can naturally build muscle with the slightest bits of exercise. You know age and you know length of time and all of that plays a huge role in that. But similarly with with resilience, one of the things that we also want to be careful with is how we define it, because, remember, from an external standpoint, when you look at someone go through something and they seem to be bouncing back, they seem to be adjusting well to the current situation, they're learning how to manage their life stressors. Internally, it can be a completely different experience, right? Because we only see people from the outside. So when we talk about resiliency, those people that you look at, who to you, are resilient, or maybe you even yourself. Maybe this could be like a self reflective type of situation where look at how many things you you bounce back from how, how you've adjusted, and then pay attention to internally, how you're experiencing everything around you, because internally, most people don't get insight into what's going on in your heart and what's going on in your mind. You're just doing and and you know that's a whole fallacy with with children being resilient when they're going through difficult situations is that they're moving on with life in a sense, but they can communicate what's going on in their mind, what's going on in their hearts when they're going through something. So you got to learn how to give them language for that and and helping them understand how their bodies actually feeling. So when you talk about trauma stored trauma in the face of a adversity, it's stored in the body needs to go somewhere unless they're active, unless they have good social support systems. So all of these are factors that play a role in resilience.

Speaker 1: 14:10

But it's very important for us, as as friends, people who are going through something difficult, to check in with people. Check in to make sure that they're doing well and, again, to make sure that what you see is adapting well or bouncing back is actually also happening internally. How are they growing closer to Lord? How are their close relationships? How are they in serving others? All of these are factors to consider, because I think when we have an idea of resilience, it's oh, they're functioning well in society, they're doing well at their job, that's enough. We need to check in on the internal world as well. It's interesting because we don't get a lot of the internal world when we look at scripture, only through some characters where we see what's going on. You know, the psalmist is obviously one of the main characters that you can get a gist of what's going on in their emotions and their mind and so on.

Speaker 2: 14:58

Yeah, yeah, okay. So let's get into what is. What does it mean to be biblically resilient? Like what does resilience look like in the Bible? Okay?

Speaker 1: 15:12

I give some real quick characteristics, yeah. I give some real, quick answers to that perseverance and the mentality of pushing forward in life. Like it's a mental state as well, like I need to get things done, and that is an aspect of resiliency. They have just a different mindset now. Like I have to still function in a world that continues to go, whether I'm good or not. That is an aspect of resiliency. So I just wanted to list those characteristics to where we know what it could look like.

Speaker 2: 15:51

Man, I got some questions for you later yeah absolutely Alright. So let's unpack a little bit. I want people to think about this in a biblical framework, so that we don't just get into proof texting, because something that I really care about on this, something that I really care about on this show, is that we don't just come across as trite and that we're just like quoting Bible verses because, okay, go to your average Christian bookstore and get some devotional book on biblical resiliency and you're likely to find a hundred proof texts.

Speaker 2: 16:20

and a proof text is where you're just ripping a verse out of context. There's no teaching with it, it's just like someone's making a point and they need a Bible verse to slap on it.

Speaker 2: 16:29

So they just slap it on there and that that's a low view of the scriptures. It's a poor treatment of the scriptures, but it's also really shallow. Yeah, we want to get to the heart of what the Christian ethic is. Okay. So when it comes to resiliency, I want you to think about it this way let's back up a little bit and think what is a biblical ethic? Look like Now. I'm an ethicist. I teach ethics, you know, and you know liberty online, so I've done this the time or two. Okay, the Christian ethics can be described as sort of this combination of a few things. There are divine commands, which is the commands of God, and most people think of that as the Bible, bible verses. Okay. There's natural laws, which we might think of as general revelation at times. Now, some philosophers going to get down my throat about conflating those two things, but deal with me, okay.

Speaker 1: 17:27

Deal with it.

Speaker 2: 17:28

Okay. So people can look out into creation and they can observe things in the natural world and to do some moral principles from that. That's called natural law reasoning. Then there's something else called virtue ethics, and this is what we need to hone in on for our conversation on biblical reasoning or biblical resiliency. Virtue ethics is the system that says that you know, one of the purposes of human existence is to move through challenges, to build moral character. That gives us an insight into what human beings are by nature.

Speaker 2: 18:02

Okay, virtue ethics in the scriptures, in the Bible, looks like building moral characters to become some kind of person that we're supposed to become, all right. So the ethic of the Bible, at least for God's people in the Bible, is that we're not just following commands, like what it means to follow the Lord is not just a list of dos and don'ts, like we're just reading the Mosaic law and then that's just what we do. Okay, that would be legalism. The Christian life is about. It's not just about following commands, but it's about building character, and some of that you can build through obeying the commands All right. But it's a combination of there's some duties that follow from the commands that God gives us, but then there are characters that we need to build, and the way the scriptures talk about that, at least in the New Testament, is being conformed to the image of Christ. That's an idea. Is we grow in righteousness, we grow in sanctification? You might think of it as the fruit of the spirit that Paul talks about Is that we grow in these character traits, or Romans 12 were transformed in our mind by the renewing of our minds. So we have to work at something to become something else. So that's the Christian ethic in a nutshell. So all human beings are made in the image of God, but Christ followers are being made in the image of Christ, all right. So everyone born in this world bears the image of God, but we are called to be something more than just a mere image of God. We're called to image God, but the way to properly image God is taught to us that we need to become like Christ. Christ shows us the way to God, and to be like Christ we have to follow Him and learn what it means to follow Him. By building wheelbays, commands and through obedience of his commands, we also build these moral characters in our lives, and that looks like virtues. In the New Testament.

Speaker 2: 20:16

There's lots of examples of what we call what New Testament scholars call virtue lists. A good, a really great example of this is Philippians 4. This is a famous passage where Paul says, finally, brothers, as Philippians 4a, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think on these things. If you're a 21st century American, you're going to read that and be like well, that's a nice list, that's a really cool. I'm going to get a tattoo now.

Speaker 1: 20:48

Okay.

Speaker 2: 20:49

Or I'm going to put that on my wall. You know, but Paul is actually using what's called a Greek virtue list.

Speaker 2: 20:55

And this is common in the Greco-Roman world. But you would just list out all these different virtues and you're, and people were supposed to emulate those virtues. Those were good things to build into your life to become the kind of person that you should be. Yeah, so a virtue is something that is a character trait developed by habitual behavior. So you modify your behavior to inculcate these traits that then allow you to act almost in an automatic way in certain situations. We would call that becoming a godly person.

Speaker 1: 21:28

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 21:29

Okay. So you modify your behavior, you obey the Lord and trust the Lord, and you keep doing that over and over, and, over and over again, and slowly but surely, those habits shape your character and you begin to do things in a more automatic way. That's what virtue ethics is. That's what a Christian virtue ethic is.

Speaker 1: 21:47

Do you need to go? Do you need experience as a certain stressor or tribute to develop these virtue, ethics or those things that you build on yourself? Yeah, obviously, obviously that's a good question.

Speaker 2: 22:02

I think some of them probably don't require a stressor, but that's a good segue to resiliency, is that? What does it mean? Is resiliency a virtue in the Christian life? I would say that it is.

Speaker 1: 22:16

And if it is?

Speaker 2: 22:17

yeah, the scriptures would talk. The closest word that we have is perseverance, the perseverance of the saints persevering through trials. These things can denote like struggle, moving through resistance.

Speaker 1: 22:35

Yeah, that's good.

Speaker 2: 22:36

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 22:37

So you want to develop those? As a Christian, there's plenty of opportunity to develop every one of those that Philippians 4-8 mentions the language in the psychology. It's this idea of identity formation, self-mastery, which kind of lands into that.

Speaker 1: 22:56

I don't know if it would be a new age way of thinking, but the idea is basically kind of an stoicism of controlling yourself, controlling your anger, and all that's part of developing this aspect of resiliency like to have the minion over how you feel about something, that you don't allow for your feelings to dictate how you're going to behave on a daily basis. And again, that goes back to this idea of bouncing back and adapting. Well, because suffering changes you. I mean it changes the way that you view yourself, it changes the way that you view struggle. There's people who are talking about this who just want the struggle. They want to face, whatever adversity, because for them it's the reintroducing of this new, developed self. Yeah, it's going to be okay. Okay, it's not addiction.

Speaker 2: 23:47

You're like adrenaline junkies, or no, no, no.

Speaker 1: 23:49

It's this idea of this is going to make me grow, so I'm willing to go through it if it's going to make me grow.

Speaker 1: 23:55

I mean, it's the whole idea of working out. I'm going to do this workout, I'm going to do this level of resistance, I'm going to do this number of weight because eventually it's going to give me the body that I'm wanting, the body that I desire. And, in the same way, when you look at this aspect of resilience, when you see struggle coming your way, you see there's an opportunity to grow, which is an aspect of resiliency, this idea that whatever is going to make me suffer, pain, is going to make me grow. What's the motto that the Marines did? I think it's like pain is sweat or sweat is pain leaving the body, something like that. And it's that whole idea of you struggle and that's weakness leaving your body.

Speaker 2: 24:41

I think it's pain is weakness, leaving the body. That's what it is. Isn't that on the remember the Titans, or no, I think they were. That water is weakness.

Speaker 1: 24:52

Water boy, you're getting in the water, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 24:57

So you talked about this personal struggle, so let's talk about this. From the New Testament, there is an individual element and a communal element here. You mentioned stoicism in our culture, like New Age thinking. Our society is so heavily influenced by individualistic thinking, which itself is not about Bad thing, individualism. But you can't understand, you can't have a full understanding of the New Testament ethic, of a New Testament Christian life If you're just thinking it's an individual. You will misread so many passages in scripture and you will do, and you will read them narcissistically. It's all about me Like the armor of God, and Ephesians six is about me, like me putting on my armor so I can go out and be a ninja you know, for Christ or whatever you know or it's, it's, it's.

Speaker 2: 25:47

You have to understand these things within the body of believers.

Speaker 2: 25:50

But we'll get to that in just a second. I want to say this James one is a good example of what you talked about persevering so that you're going to grow. James one opening paragraph. He says brothers, count it all. Joy when you enter into diverse trials and tribulations, knowing that these things will produce faith and perseverance and patience in your life. Okay, so that's. That's one.

Speaker 2: 26:11

Another one that people often misses. That he says after they says does any of, do any of you lack wisdom? Ask of God and he will give it to you freely, but don't doubt, because for the man who doubts, I can't expect to receive anything from the Lord. So, even the act of faith, when you ask God for something, that, that faith of believing that God's going to well, it's the wisdom to see through trials. Okay, it's that wisdom that he's talking about. There is not just like intelligence or like give me super wisdom so I could be a Wall Street investor or something. It's the wisdom to see through, to see the reason for trials. If you ask God for that kind of wisdom in faith, he will give it to you. If you doubt, he says it's like. It's like waves being tossed to and fro. Imagine, like Peter on the water with Jesus. As soon as Peter sees the wind, he sinks. Okay, that's, that's the same image. Okay, that's going on there.

Speaker 1: 27:02

Anyway, I digress on that.

Speaker 2: 27:03

But yeah, james one. Paul tells Timothy to endure hardship as a good soldier and to share in the suffering that they're going through. He tells us the Thessalonians is first, the first Thessalonians, four. He says to to work quietly with your hands and to just be a good citizen in life. Okay, but some of them weren't working, okay.

Speaker 2: 27:31

He's like you gotta get to work, okay, but to work quietly with your hands and live quiet and peaceful lives, Okay, just develop that resiliency of just day in and day out the grind, as we would call it, paul's like embrace the grind. Yeah, yeah, pretty much it's like the rapture, hasn't?

Speaker 1: 27:48

happened yet.

Speaker 2: 27:49

Embrace the grind, Thessalonians.

Speaker 1: 27:51

And he always gives examples of athletes and soldiers, like I mean, that was a comment throughout the day, right?

Speaker 1: 27:58

It is this idea of the athletes have to go through a tremendous amount of suffering to perform well for those Olympians that they had. Same thing with soldiers. Just having this mentality, I know that I'm going to encounter suffering and pain, so I need to be ready for that. And so there is this aspect of how you think about suffering. If you see suffering as only something that causes pain, then, yeah, your resiliency might suffer. But if you see it as something that draws you closer to Christ and makes you fully dependent on Him, or something that maybe the Lord is trying to grow in your life, then you might approach it with a different perspective and see yourself not just yourself, but see the work that God is doing in your life throughout that process. Yeah, that's good.

Speaker 1: 28:50

Victor Franco has a book called Man's Search for Meaning and he was one of the Jewish survivors of a concentration camp and we've talked about him a little bit before. But the whole idea is you know, there's meaning behind everything that I am currently experiencing. There's another guy. He is actually the founder of kind. His dad was a Jewish man who was also in the concentration camps, and when his son his name is Daniel LeBetsky I think his name. He asked us that. He said, dad, what kept you going Like? How could you still have such a positive attitude about life when you experience what you've experienced?

Speaker 1: 29:35

And one of the things it's a real powerful story. One of the things that his father said is son, for whatever reason, I knew that the Americans were going to come and save us. I just knew that I was going to be a big part of that. So I just had to live every single day with the hope that we were going to be saved. And one of the things that I learned from that experience is that these men showed me tremendous kindness, even in the midst of everything that was happening. So in return, I wanted to be kind to other people. I didn't want to let that suffering harden my heart and make me rash or negative towards other people. So that's kind of how he came up with the name kind for his bar. Is that his dad?

Speaker 2: 30:15

this is the kind, oh, it's going to be the kind bars, yeah, the kind bars.

Speaker 1: 30:18

So that's one of those stories where it's like someone goes through suffering and they develop this trait from that suffering, which is an aspect of resiliency is that you eventually find skills that allow you, or develop skills that allow you, to cope with a very dire situation in a healthy way.

Speaker 1: 30:37

So, people who are developing resiliency, what you want to look for is what skills can I build from this situation that can help me cope better? And some of that is just connecting with other people. For some it's being vulnerable, for some it's serving others it's being kind towards other people, so that you don't allow the suffering to harden your heart, which happens a lot to people. When they go through something that's difficult, christian or non, they start to look at God in a specific way. God, why did you allow this to happen? Not allowing for room to grow in resiliency? Because they're seeing their perspective of God is shifting, and we see that in scripture, too, where there's questions and questions and questions. But if they just stayed with the question and rebelled against God, they wouldn't have learned the lesson that God had for them.

Speaker 2: 31:26

Yeah, so you said something that I want to focus on. Theologically, you were giving advice to people of how to work through and build resiliency in their lives, and a lot of it. You just gave some examples. It was like serving other people what were some others.

Speaker 1: 31:45

You said what were some of the ideals that you develop in order to cope better with the situation, being kind towards other people. So this aspect that there's more to it than just my suffering. There's an also because he wasn't suffering by himself either right, there were other people in that concentration camp as well.

Speaker 2: 32:04

Yeah, that's really good. That's perfect for what?

Speaker 2: 32:07

I want to the theological point I want to make here. Yes, lest we conceive of the Christian life as a holistic enterprise, we need to understand what the Bible says about these character traits, especially something like resiliency Whenever the Bible instructs us to persevere, to endure hardship. These things are almost always in the context of the church, like these letters that Paul writes are mostly written to congregations. The pastoral epistles written to Timothy and Titus, okay, but most of them are written to congregations. So when or in James writes to you know congregation as well. So the implication is that the way that we develop biblical resiliency is through the fellowship of the believers. Like I can develop individual skills Sure, we can all do that but in order to develop them as a Christian, in a Christian way, because, you mentioned Stoicism and a lot of people are running toward individualism, like an individualistic, stoic kind of mindset.

Speaker 2: 33:23

We don't have time to get into what Stoicism is, but a lot of people are running to that in our culture because they get on the internet, they find their internet guru that tells them how to live life, and you know especially the red pill guys, which we'll do an episode about them, yep and they think that they can go it alone or that in the Christian context, like sanctification and godliness is an individual enterprise and we all just kind of work on it on our own. Well, you have, you have some personal responsibilities, we all do, but you here's what I would say is you cannot live a fully virtuous, godly Christian life outside of the body. Yeah, you cannot live it by yourself.

Speaker 2: 34:02

It's impossible because you have certain commands, there's certain responsibilities that you have toward your brother and others toward your brothers and sisters and Christ, and by a following those commands you actually begin to build character traits within yourself.

Speaker 2: 34:17

So you mentioned things like loving one another, like you know, showing acts of kindness and serving one another, the way that a Christian is supposed to do that, just to direct people, because some people might take that and they might say, okay, well, I'll just go and they'll have some sort of general idea. I'll go and do a soup kitchen, or I'll just go and, I don't know, give five bucks to the guy on the street down there Not that those things aren't virtuous, but if you want to direct, like, hone in and concentrate your effort, do this within the body of believers. Find a way to serve in your church. Find a way to love and show acts of kindness to your brothers and sisters and Christ. I would say that is your foremost, first responsibility, before you share that with the world and nonbelievers, is that you share your love with believers, brothers and sisters and Christ. Okay, now someone's going to say, like what do you mean? You don't care about nonbelievers? Like no, that's not what we're saying, but you have to have a hierarchy of values. Okay, you first have to take care of yourself. Okay, you got to be a healthy individual, and then you need to pour out into your family and then your spiritual family as well.

Speaker 2: 35:26

And so there's lots of, there's lots of examples of that in the Bible. I mean Ephesians 4, paul talks about the body of believers grows up together as a mature body with Christ as its head. In 1 Corinthians 12, when Paul is instructing the Corinthian church about their gifts in the spirit, he says hey, one thing one part can't say to another. I'm more important than you. You all have to work together and that means you all have to grow together. So if you take Ephesians 4 and 1 Corinthians 12, and you read those together, you understand, oh, like I need my brothers and sisters to not just function, not just grow, but to function in life, to live the Christian life. I need that. So there's lots of commands like that in Scripture that we need to follow, and you can't do that without being in part of a body.

Speaker 1: 36:17

Yeah, yeah, no, I think you hit it on the nail, tim. I mean, you need, essentially, to develop resiliency. You need two things suffering and the community. Yeah, like you need to go through something in order to show you that you're able to bounce back just well, which is developing that sense of community Like you can. I mean, that is, that is a protective factor against so many, and God created it that way.

Speaker 2: 36:43

Well, when you have resiliency, you can then help your brothers and sisters. Yeah, let me read a passage to you. This will be my final thing before book recommendations. Second Corinthians, chapter one. Let me just read this to you. This is verse three through five. And you tell me if this is possible without resiliency. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord, jesus Christ, the father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.

Speaker 1: 37:35

Got to be community.

Speaker 2: 37:40

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 37:41

Got to be community In order to show the same level of comfort that we receive from God. We need to be there for other people and I really like your point about this idea of individualistic as a collectivist, because that is where the culture is pushing, but not realizing that the real way to grow is when you have a strong community, because you're also reinvesting what you're learning to other people and that's part of Christian growth, christian maturities, that you're thinking about others more than yourself. There's this. We could do a whole episode on this aspect of this idea that we don't do enough self care. We need to focus more on ourselves and we need to really pay attention to what I need and these things and I think those are things have their place. But it's gone so far to the other side that now we just don't care about people like our comfort and ease and safety, in a sense, is ultimate even more than serving others. So I think there's a way to find a balance there.

Speaker 1: 38:46

But when we talk about resiliency, we talk about spiritual growth, christian growth. We need to do that in community. So it needs, we need to invest in the community so that they can also feel close to us. It's, it's a it goes both ways right. You're giving to them and they're also given to you by being able to receive that, and also, when you're not feeling they're feeling good, they're also able to pour into you as well. Yeah, but yes, good, good topic here on resiliency I only have two books to share those books, yeah.

Speaker 2: 39:19

Now, neither of these are explicitly Christian books, but I find them to be really good, so you might have some others, but the first one is called personality isn't permanent I think I mentioned this in a previous episode, but by Benjamin Hardy, and I think it's a really good book for dispelling this myth that I'm stuck with the traits that I have, the personality traits that I think I have. He blows up that whole personality test myth and says look, you can set goals and shape your personality. In a certain way, I would say that what you're really shaping is character traits.

Speaker 1: 39:54

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 39:55

Okay, but it's a really, really good book. I found it super helpful. And the other one is called you Are Not your Brain by Jeffrey Schwartz.

Speaker 1: 40:03

I like that and Rebecca Gladding.

Speaker 2: 40:06

I heard John Orberg recommend this on a YouTube video recently and I got it and it's a really good book. Yeah, and it's all about recognizing that you know deceptive messages in your brain that send false signals and you, being you need to know how to combat that and redirect and reframe those things. So it's it's good at teaching kind of mental resiliency.

Speaker 1: 40:31

Yeah, yeah. No, that's good, and one that comes to mind as you're talking about, you know, the brain and so on, what there's one called the God shaped brain, by Timothy Jennings I think this is the last thing, but basically it just talks about how our brains are wired to seek for that connection with God, and, in having a strong belief in God, shapes and forms your mental health. So what we believe about God matters and it affects the way that we do life on a daily basis. That's a good one as well. Man, I'm feeling resilient. I don't know about you, I feel resilient.

Speaker 2: 41:11

I'm feeling fatigued right now. You need resilience, yeah, like we have this, yeah.

Speaker 1: 41:16

You're going to bounce back. Today was a busy day for my body.

Speaker 2: 41:19

I had a very long day.

Speaker 1: 41:20

It was a long day.

Speaker 2: 41:21

Lots of teaching, lots of talking. So my voice is shot.

Speaker 1: 41:25

Yeah, you're showing resilience, though, because you're here, that's right, that's right, I am.

Speaker 2: 41:29

Yeah, we got one more to go. Yeah, let's build on this, yeah.

Speaker 1: 41:32

Yeah Well, guys, hopefully this episode was helpful for you. I'm sure you would take some lessons here about resilience, developing it and also encouraging others in your own resilience. So remember to seek out community, invest in others, and I think you will be on the track to the results. All right, we'll talk next time. Have a good one, bye.