Resilient Daisies

I have just come in from mowing the lawns marveling once again at the tenacity, the perniciousness of the daisies, even in the middle of winter.  Their smiling faces keep popping up regardless of how many times the lawn mower cuts off their heads.  Invariably, as soon as I finish the lawns, there they are again smiling cheerfully and waving in the breeze.  Actually, I really like the daisies in the lawn. I so appreciate their ability to pick themselves up and come back.  They demonstrate to me, the power of resilience. 

Resilience is an “in” word at present.  It is the ability to bounce back after stress, trauma, and hardship. It is the ability to cope with crisis and carry on. Whilst previous generations have learned and practiced resilience our own generation appears to be lacking in this essential character quality. I’m not sure you can suddenly produce resilience. I believe resilience is the by-product of developing faith and hope.  

The apostle Paul is someone who seems infused with resilience – no matter how many times he was insulted, beaten, stoned, imprisoned, and shipwrecked, he jumps right back into the fray.  He doesn’t deny the emotional toil it took. In his words to the Corinthians,

“We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death.”

However, he added a “but” to his experiences, which made all the difference.

“We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.” 

How did Paul keep “putting his head back up”?  What was it that gave him the resilience or the strength to pick himself up? It was this simple word “but” that gives us the clue.  Paul’s faith was in more than himself, it was in an Almighty God who can do the impossible. In Paul’s words, “But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us.”  And later in the same letter he writes, “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.”

This is the source of his strength – the sustaining, enabling power of God. The same power that raised a dead Jesus back to life now operates within each believer.  When we can’t go on, He can.  When we are weak, powerless and defeated, His power is strength, hope and life to us. 

We all have our bad days, we all have those times when we are overwhelmed, despairing and wondering if it is worth it all. Take heart.  Look at the daisy with its smiling cheerful face and remember the same power, the same strength, the same God that raised Jesus from the dead is resident in you.  Like Paul, we can look back to previous struggles and say, ‘thank God he delivered me, he got me through.”  We can look at our current struggle and say, “you might think you can cut me down, wear me out, but God is my strength!”

Take the punch that is thrown at you and come right back, declaring “but God!”  Add “but God” into your vocabulary, just as Paul did.  Add “but God” to the problem and see what God can do.