The Holy Spirit coaches us to grow more resilient through our challenges

The sudden, unexpected closure of Heathrow — by almost any measure Europe’s busiest airport — has provoked many questions about the airport’s resilience against accidents and disasters. 

This closure was caused by an unexplained fire in a nearby substation, resulting in a temporary power outage before alternative switching arrangements restored supplies. However, it took a whole day, causing huge disruption to both passengers and aircraft placement. The airport management stated that safety priorities required time to restart the various systems and test them before resuming flight arrivals and departures.

Clearly, the airport had some resilience against the loss of grid power, but it is also evident to many that it lacked sufficient emergency flexibility to ensure reliable airport operations.

If I were piloting one of those large passenger aircraft on final approach, I would want to be certain that the runway lights and location guidance would stay on, the radars would keep sweeping, and the tower IT and communications would remain constant.

Someone with more experience than most in weathering the squalls and shoals of political leadership under public scrutiny is Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy. One day, when he is granted the rest and space to reflect on his years of engaging with people across Europe and the world — the supportive, the hostile, and the quick to betray — Zelenskyy will write his book. 

He will have to write it to meet demand! Possibly titled Setbacks and Successes, it would detail how the two often go hand in hand. He would likely emphasize that his experience of encouragement and fellowship, alongside betrayal and opposition, is nothing — a mere splash of cold mud — compared to the courage of his men and women on or supporting a front line hundreds of miles long. Together, politician and people face a cruel, ruthless, and unpredictable enemy intent on erasing Ukraine as a sovereign country.

As we stand with Ukraine and its need for genuine peace, what do we hear God saying about His gift of resilience in our own times of need?

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling. (Psalm 46:1-3 ESV) 

Wherever we are on our journey of faith, looking to God allows us to perceive how He is an unshakable refuge, offering strength to endure chaotic situations as we learn to rely on Him.

When we review these promises, they become more than historic words spoken not just hundreds, but thousands of years ago. They have been shared as encouragement in every kind of situation by countless people since. These timeless words feel like God speaking to us personally, tuning us to His encouraging, loving voice to meet our needs and offer reassurance. The enduring words of God are always an excellent starting point for any ‘now’ word He may have for us.

Here is another promise about resilience:

He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might He increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:29-31 ESV)

You don’t need much Bible knowledge to know that Jesus didn’t have an easy life, especially with the Jewish religious fraternity. He was continually accused and slandered as He pursued the mission He knew His Father had set Him on. He was thrown out of a synagogue, and His hearers even tried to push Him over a cliff. At the end, He was arrested, falsely charged, and handed over to the Romans for a horrific form of execution — confusing the Roman governor, who saw that He had been set up.

Ah yes — but that was Jesus, I hear you say.

He was so perfectly filled with the Spirit that our kind of resilience will always seem feeble and failing by comparison.

That’s because it has to grow. And to grow, it must be stretched and tested.

James is remembered for a particularly encouraging letter circulated to help those in the new churches that were springing up, who found that living for Jesus brought setbacks as well as joys. He wrote:

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (James 1:2-4 ESV)

He is saying, “Bring it on — it’s how we grow!”

One who wasn’t saying “Bring it on,” but who endured more than his share of extreme difficulties — including shipwrecks, floggings, being expelled from cities and stoned, wrongful imprisonment, and constant pursuit — was the church planter Paul. If you learn anything about his story, it’s clear that he grew in faith and trust through his trials, developing such resilience that he seemed almost indifferent to what happened to him.

We may be just starting out on this experience of God’s fitness training, but while life tries to bring us down, He is building us up. Our bank of resilience grows with every deposit made!

And if we are moved to pray for and encourage Volodymyr Zelenskyy — or anyone else facing trials or injustices — this is a rock-solid foundation to stand on.

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Ian Greig is a British former pastor who writes about ‘Faith without the Faff’ mainly for thoughtful non-churchgoers