Resilience
When it seems as if a crisis would hold us down, spiritual buoyancy helps us meet the challenge and move forward.
Resilience is a most desirable quality in human experience when we see it as an attitude of elasticity and buoyancy Resilience helps an individual to recover from crises, to function more effectively amid the rapid pace and change in today's society, and to continue to make progress. What does Christian Science teach us about how to gain a deeper, spiritual basis for this valuable quality?
Christian Science teaches that an understanding of God and of man's relationship to Him enables us to look beyond a challenge and ask ourselves what God, divine Mind, knows as actually taking place in divine reality. God is perfect Principle, the only creative, conceiving Mind. God creates and knows only what is good, harmonious, and eternal. There can be no chaos or crisis in the kingdom governed by perfect Mind. And, in reality, this divine harmony includes the man of God's creating.
As our understanding of these spiritual facts deepens, we learn to see a crisis not as an unsolvable dilemma but as an opportunity to prove God's present perfection and His eternal, loving care for His offspring. Instead of yielding our thinking to fear or discouragement or self-pity at times of challenge, we can turn to God in prayer, humbly endeavoring to understand what He knows of His man and creation. Instead of accepting a mortal sense of despair, we can confidently expect healing solutions, turning points, progress.
The Bible contains many examples of remarkable individuals who illustrated this quality of resilience, of elasticity of thought, rather than a crumpled, weak attitude of defeat. Joseph, in early Old Testament times, showed great resilience in meeting challenges. Joseph progressed even when he was sold into slavery; he turned the enmity and dishonesty that he encountered in Egypt into steppingstones; time after time when confronted by setbacks, he radically, humbly, relied on God instead of succumbing to resentment or discouragement.
The Bible contains examples of individuals who had this quality of resilience rather than a crumpled, weak attitude of defeat.
Centuries after Joseph, Paul turned crises into turning points of spiritual progress. Persecuted and maligned, Paul nevertheless carried the Christian gospel throughout much of the known world and became the greatest missionary Christianity has ever known. Great resilience is conveyed in Paul's work. We see the buoyancy in his words: "I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." Phil. 4:12, 13 .
Paul's success in his ministry demonstrates how an understanding of God and following the way of Christ Jesus give one resilience. Paul could rise above circumstances, whether poverty or abundance, hardship or success. And, indeed, the life and works of Christ Jesus furnish all of us, as they did Paul, with an unparalleled example of dominion in the face of what appeared to be insurmountable problems. Jesus' sonship with God and his understanding of God's will enabled him to meet and overcome sin, sickness, and death and to win such lasting victories over evil that they will bless mankind forever.
In the early years after Mrs. Eddy discovered Christian Science in 1866, she encountered severe challenges: poverty, loneliness, disbelief. And yet she could write later: "For three years after my discovery, I sought the solution of this problem of Mind-healing, searched the Scriptures and read little else, kept aloof from society, and devoted time and energies to discovering a positive rule. The search was sweet, calm, and buoyant with hope, not selfish nor depressing." Science and Health, p. 109 . Mrs. Eddy pursued the revelation of God as divine Principle. Motivated by a keen desire to make her discovery of the availability of God's power accessible to everyone, Mrs. Eddy turned crises and hardships into opportunities to grow in spiritual understanding. And giving the practical proofs of God's healing power, she went forward to write the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health, and to establish Christian Science.
In Science and Health we read, "Trials are proofs of God's care." Ibid., p. 66 . When we meet a trial with resilient courage and grow in our understanding of God and of our relationship to Him, we will come to see the proof of God's healing love.
Each time we are confronted with challenges in our human experience, we have the freedom to choose whether we are going to turn ever more unreservedly to God or engage in a dreary dialogue with mortal mind that only prolongs the problem. As we meet each crisis with buoyant hope and prayer, the situation becomes a turning point for good, a proof of God's tender, always available, loving care for us.
With resilience, based upon a deepening understanding of God, we can rise above challenges. But even more than this, we can see the challenges as opportunities for progress, and we can move forward in our lives without the strain and pressure associated with the pace of change in today's society. Those who rely upon God find themselves able to meet stress with inner peace and dominion. Even in the midst of fast-moving change is the ever-available, demonstrable fact of God's presence and wisdom. In speaking of the practicality of Christian Science for both businessmen and scholars (and indeed, for us all), Science and Health states, "The human mind, imbued with this spiritual understanding, becomes more elastic, is capable of greater endurance, escapes somewhat from itself, and requires less repose." Ibid., p. 128 .
An understanding of God, expressed in an attitude of resilience, of stepping up to challenge rather than cringing helplessly, can also manifest itself in stronger health and more youthful vigor. A reporter with a Chicago newspaper commented about Mrs. Eddy, "At the time I met her she must have been some sixty years of age, yet she had the coloring and the elastic bearing of a woman of thirty, and this, she told me, was due to the principles of Christian Science." Quoted in Mary Baker Eddy, Pulpit and Press, p. 32 .
Resilience, then, is an invaluable quality. Resilience can express joy, elasticity, buoyancy, an expectancy of good, faith in God. As we courageously turn ever more expectantly and wholeheartedly to God, we are inevitably strengthened and find healing.
