resilience: [rəˈzilyəns] NOUN the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.

Something good that has come from all the hardship this year is that with every setback we have found that God gives us both an opportunity and a reason to carry on.

As we cope with COVID fatigue and a host of other challenges, we have been pressed to evaluate the sources of our hope and strength. For many of us, this means our families have become dearer to us than ever as we have leaned upon them through the loneliness and uncertainty.

For believers in Jesus, this has also been a season to get better acquainted with our resident helper and guide, the Holy Spirit. The Bible teaches us that the moment we say Yes to Jesus He becomes a constant presence in our lives by way of the Spirit. Christ actually lives within us because the Spirit of Christ, a.k.a. the Holy Spirit, lives in us.

Mysterious, yet true.

It is from the Holy Spirit that the Christian gains his or her resilience. He is the one who compels us and empowers us to keep trusting, hoping, and moving, even when life is unbearably frightening and difficult.

It is the Holy Spirit who gives us resurrection power – not just the power to be raised from the dead someday in the future – but also the power to rise up every time our circumstances get us down.

Here is how the apostle Paul explains it:

But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is your life because of righteousness. Moreover, if the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will also make your mortal bodies alive through his Spirit who lives in you. -Romans 8:10-11 (NET Bible)

This means that not only will the Spirit raise your body back to life in the future resurrection, just like Jesus, but also that He enables you to get back up every time the circumstances of life knock you down.

It is the Holy Spirit who gives us resurrection power – not just the power to be raised from the dead someday in the future – but also the power to rise up every time our circumstances get us down.

Just like the inflatable clown punching bags many of us had when we were kids, life sometimes knocks us horizontal. But because the Holy Spirit is within us, we have the means to get back upright again and again, no matter how many times we’ve been laid low.

Thank God, the Holy Spirit gives us resilience.

It’s a new day with God. Run with it.