Surprised by Life and Death by Wil Triggs

We are coming up on the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. With that in mind, here are a few excerpts from recent prayer sheets that I prepare weekly. The quotes and stories are from real people who live each day with faith that stands apart from the people around them.
 
10/23/2024 Nigeria — A week ago, Pastor Eli Abdullahi Tinau attended a memorial service honoring 29 Christians who were killed by Islamic Fulani extremists in 2015.
 
The victims, who had sought refuge in a classroom at LGEA Primary School in Nkiendoro, Miango district of Bassa County, were brutally murdered after militants bypassed the military’s protection. Two survivors were critically injured, and one later died from gunshot wounds.
 
Pastor Tinau, 35, has come close, many times, to being a victim of Fulani extremist attacks himself. It’s simply part of his work as a missionary from Katsina state. Tinau, who also pastors the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) in Nkiendoro, which is about 60 miles from Jos, doesn’t let the threat of violence or even death deter him from sharing the gospel with the Fulani. So far, Tinau has led two Fulani to Christ.
 
10/25/2024 Somalia — As Mohammad Abdul led a Christian worship gathering on the evening of Oct. 5 in his home in Somalia’s Lower Juba Region, four Muslim relatives waited outside for the event to end. 
 
As the worship ended, his relatives confronted Abdul, asking him why he was worshiping God differently. 
 
“My prayer is a secret between me and my Lord Isa [Jesus],” Abdul told his relatives. “Why should I pray in public? That’s just a way to please men. In my time of worship, I should please only God, who is in the heavenly places. Isa, who saved me, knows my heart, and I am happy in my heart, so leave me alone.”
 
His relatives then assaulted Abdul, hitting him with a blunt object and slapping him in the face.
 
I have followed stories of persecution for years, and now weekly, and there’s something about these stories that never fails to encourage me and disturb me, all at the same time.
 
I don’t know why this comes as a surprise, but for me it still does after all these years. We Christians find inspiration when other Christians die for their faith. We pray and do what we can to stand with them, but the impact of a person giving their all in the face of opposition does something nothing else can.
 
More than any temporal advancement, becoming the head of a company, being elected to public office, even gaining recognition and praise in a field of music or another artistry, those who die for Jesus’ sake have launched people into missionary service and deeper walks of faith. Many of my older friends recall the five young men who died at the hands of the Waorani in Ecuador and how their sacrifice changed the way people thought about missionary service. There is a church there today.
 
So, for this special time of prayer, I’ve collected a few quotations from people who have known the fellowship of suffering through the ages.
 
If we are the sheep of His pasture, remember that sheep are headed for the altar.
—Jim Elliot


When you're able to love, you're able to sacrifice yourself for the truth. Since I learned that lesson, my hands do not clench into fists.
—Sabina Wurmbrand
 
Lord, open the king of England's eyes!
—Wiilliam Tyndale
 
You can kill us, but you cannot harm us.
--Justin Martyr
 
My desires are crucified, the warmth of my body is gone. A stream flows whispering inside me: Deep within me it says, Come to the Father. Near to the sword, I am near to God. In the company of wild beasts, I am in company with God. Only let all that happens be in the name of Jesus Christ, so that we may suffer with him. I can endure all things if he enables me. I am God’s wheat. May I be ground by the teeth of the wild beasts until I become the fine white bread that belongs to Christ.
—Ignatius of Antioch
 
Our life is seed, sown in the earth to rise again in the world to come, where we will be renewed by Christ in immortal life. I did not frame this body, nor will I destroy it. God, you gave me life, you will also restore it.
—Jonas of Beth-Lasa
 
Perhaps you can add your own expression of faith, expressing your love and commitment to Jesus. Ours is not theirs, but in prayer in some small way, theirs can be ours. 

Father, Maker of all things, every soul;
Son, shepherd who sings, bruised triumph, names on scroll,
Spirit, new life brings with the burning coal.
Let all who have breath praise the surprise
And rejoice in awe as we see the dead rise.
Ours the suffering, the grave, the skies,
because by faith  “. . . some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life.” (Hebrews11:35)

Bibles Up! by Lorraine Triggs

I’d like to think that on Sunday in some church somewhere in America, children are having a Sword Drill in their Sunday school classes. As a child, I ruled at Sword Drills, or Bible Drills as my church called them.

“Bibles up!” We would hold our King James Bibles by their spines over our heads—any lower would be cheating.

“_________” Teacher would give a Scripture reference, which was also our cue to look for anyone thumbing the pages of their Bible to gain advantage. This naturally gave way to accusations of cheating, hoping to disqualify any competitor.

“Go!” Hurry to find the verse in our Bibles and start reading it aloud.

I continued my rule of the Bible drill as a curriculum editor at David C. Cook Publishing. It was the early days of desktop publishing, and my fellow editors and I would play our version of Bible drills. One of us at our desk with an unopen Bible; one at the computer set to hit find and go; one to call out a random Scripture reference. Human vs. computer and we savvy editors would always win.

In theory Sword Drills are designed to help children learn how to locate books of the Bible and be comfortable looking up verses, with the goal of having Scripture verses ready for spiritual battle. In practice, Bible drills did help me learn my way around the Bible, but in a hop, skip and a jump way, and, however unintentionally, turned Scripture into a competitive sport—one that I am still tempted to play today.

If my current social feeds reveal anything, it’s how easy it is to post Bible verses for one’s personal agenda and advancement. I do manage mostly to avoid these kinds of posts, but I still hop, skip and jump through Scripture and use it for my advantage.

Here I am reading along in Philippians, happily keeping up with Bible study, when I read verses 14 and 15 of chapter 2: “Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world.”

Rather than slow down and face my grumbling and disputing, my complaining and arguing, I skip right over that to the much safer crooked and twisted generation. It’s easier to complain about the dark days we live in than to confess to grumbling about an unfair situation or not getting my own way.

I compare the sins of the godless—sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, those who practice homosexuality, thieves, the greedy—to the nice sins I commit, using God’s Word to inflate myself as I take a giant leap over Paul’s reminder in 2 Corinthians 6:11 that “such were some of you," apart from Christ's rescue of us from good and bad sins.

Scripture is useful, not for personal gain or promotion, but “useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God maybe thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17, NIV)

So, Bibles up!

(Philippians 2:15-16)

Go

". . . shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life.”

Walking with Pongo and Wendell by Wil Triggs

Wendell Hawley’s book of prayers, ones he first prayed at College Church during his time of pastoral ministry here, are in the process of being printed into a new edition. I think it’s going to be beautiful, something many of us will want for our bookshelves and our hearts.
 
It’s not ready yet, but the publisher I’ve been working with on behalf of Wendell has sent the author’s proof, and I’ve been reading his prayers again. We used to use the prayers in our musings, but Wendell at some point told us to stop. He wanted to encourage Lorraine and me to write more of our own musings. He wanted to see what we would say week after week. So, we have respected his wishes. Until now.
 
Wendell, it’s just a few lines. This small portion of the first prayer in the section for October jumped out at me:
 
“Sovereign Lord, your greatness is unsearchable.
                Your goodness is infinite.
                Your compassion unfailing.
                Your mercies ever new.”
 
I walk my dog in the morning and consider the unsearchable greatness of the one Sovereign Lord. As my little min pin dodges through the grass to the tree trunks in the parkway and what bushes he can reach, I find myself thinking of greatness, goodness, compassion, mercies.
 
Unsearchable greatness, yes, but not unknowable. There are ways that we can know God. And we are invited to search the Scriptures and, in that sense, we do know him through a kind of searching. Never completely to know, but always a little bit more, day by day, to know him whom we cannot see, the One whose greatness we cannot search.
 
My dog cannot be outside unleashed. It’s his breed, impossible to catch if he gets loose without his leash. I want to be as tethered to God and his infinite greatness as my dog must be to his leash.
 
As I watch my dog sniffing, the walk turns into a run to whatever happens to be in front of us, to whatever smells good. The dog is intent on finding this goodness in the moment. And though I may be oblivious, he is attuned to all kinds of good things I can’t smell or hear.
 
What to make of infinite goodness? We might strive for a few acts of true goodness. Maybe try to do something good every day. Yes, let us all try for something good on this day. But our goodness, or maybe I’ll just speak for myself and say, my goodness is definitely finite. Short-lived goodness. That’s my kind. It is at its best when it knows that it really isn’t mine at all, but an echo or a shadow of the only good and wise One.
 
My dog has a different idea of goodness from Lorraine or me.
 
When we had two dogs and we were out of the house, they managed to break open a down-filled pillow. It was a good time, no, a great time for them, emptying out the pillow onto the bedroom floor—a foot of snow feathers blanketing a winter storm throughout our bedroom and floating down, down, down the stairs so that when we got home we saw the hint of it in the little down feather suspended in the air like the first snowflakes of the season.
 
Dog goodness and human goodness might occasionally align, but this was not one of those moments. My goodness so often falls under the category of down feathers let loose from their pillow-home. We come home and find the mess of goodness and clean it up as quickly as possible. By the time we’re done, the dogs have forgotten the feathers and moved on to a master-given chew toy. God’s goodness is not my goodness. His goodness follows us all the days of our lives, and cleanses us, not the other way around.
 
If goodness is in short supply, it seems like compassion, not to mention “unfailing compassion,” is even more of a rarity.
 
And the mercy of Jesus, wait, Wendell is saying mercies. Plural. These are ever new, not because they need to be but because every day of my whack-a-mole world requires a new mercy. Or two. Make that three or more.

My little dog breed was created to catch mice on farms in Germany, but here in Winfield, we don’t want him bringing us mice. We don’t want mice dead or alive dangling down the side of his mouth. Thankfully he hasn’t been doing that.
 
But here we are on our walk in the almost sun-up shadows of early morning.
 
I think of the dog of a former work colleague of Lorraine’s, who once proudly presented her with the pet parakeet bird in its mouth. Fortunately (for the dog), they loved the dog more than the bird.
 
Like a stubborn bloodhound kind of dog, I keep digging up folly. Every day I find some new folly particular to the day. I smell it, digging and picking it up with my mouth. I look up at my master. Look what I dug up now. Mercifully, he takes the dirt-covered moldy thing I’m so proud of finding. I release my jaws to his pull and there, it’s gone by God’s new and perfect mercy. We walk together.

Grateful for the leash.
 
Wendell goes on: “You are altogether lovely—superior in all things.”
 
This is not the apex of the prayer. It’s just there in the middle, not a complete thought even in itself and yet just these few lines stay with me. Like this pre-dawn ordinary walk on this October early day, I think and don’t think. My dear little dog is faithful in ways that I’m not. He is always happy for me to come home. He is always ready for a walk, always happy to just be in the same room with me. So, there are some ways that I can learn from him, to always be ready and happy to see and love my Lord.
 
As the sun comes up and the morning grey gives way to colors, I say along with Wendell, “Lord, you truly are altogether lovely.”

The Queen of Sheba by Lorraine Triggs

My mother was no Old Testament scholar though she did have an unconventional handle on Old Testament characters, thanks in part to her upbringing in an Orthodox Jewish home. These characters were often used as standards for our behavior, sometimes as good examples, sometimes bad.

The most frequent standard bearer was the queen of Sheba, as in “And who do you think you are, the queen of Sheba?” This was not a rhetorical question and typically posed when my mother thought my sisters and I were putting on airs—acting as if we were better or more deserving than others. " No," we hemmed and hawed, "we’re not the Queen of Sheba, but…"

In 1 Kings 10 we meet the queen of Sheba. She had heard all about Solomon and came to test him with hard questions, and she "arrived in Jerusalem with a large group of attendants and a great caravan of camels loaded with spices, large quantities of gold, and precious jewels.” (10:2, NLT)

The queen wasn’t a bad queen. She told Solomon that his wisdom and prosperity surpassed what she had heard. She saw how happy his men and servants were, and she blessed Solomon’s God, acknowledging that the Lord had set him on the throne.

It’s not until I read 1 Kings 10:13 that I begin to understand what was behind my mother’s question: “King Solomon gave the queen of Sheba whatever she asked for besides all the customary gifts he had so generously given. Then she and all her attendants returned to their own land.” (NLT) Even if Mother were as wealthy as Solomon, there was no way she would have given my sibs and me whatever we asked for—hence, the comparison to the queen of Sheba—and why were we asking anyhow? My childhood was far from austere; however, my mother did not want her daughters to grow up what we label today, as entitled.

It’s a word loaded with connotations, but in the end its definition is simple: a belief that we deserve or are entitled to certain privileges—even when it comes to salvation. Say what? We don’t believe in salvation by works, but there are times when we think salvation is more by entitlement than by grace. Like the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable in Luke 18, we’re impressed with ourselves and what we bring to salvation—status, wealth, achievement. Isn’t Christendom lucky to have us? Instead, let’s be more like the tax collector in the parable, overwhelmed with our sin, overwhelmed with God’s mercy and grace.  

So, who do we think we are—the queen of Sheba who came to King Solomon with her retinue of gold, camels and spices?

No, we are the not the queen of Sheba. We come, instead, with nothing in our hands, no money for food or water, to the greater eternal king and receive the bread of life, living water and words that are more precious than gold—fragrant with gospel spices of death, burial and resurrection.

Dark Glasses by Wil Triggs

Lorraine and I like to watch a television series whose sponsor is a river cruise company. Before each show starts, there’s a commercial for the cruise line. There are shots of sunny days with the cruise ship floating down the European river.
 
My only actual contact with a river cruise was when we were at a summer camp ministry in Russia, back when that kind of thing was allowed. The campsite was situated by a wide, lovely river, and whenever we went down to the river, campers and leaders alike would wave at people aboard the cruise ships passing by and the passengers would wave back at us. This idyllic scene would have made a great commercial for the cruise company.
 
The camp leaders, however, wanted us to see something different, and for some reason, were eager to take us to the evangelical church in town.
 
Camp felt a long way from town, but it really wasn’t that far. It was just a short ride to the center where the church was, so they took us there for a short visit in between camps when one batch of campers had gone and other one would soon arrive.
 
We went in and the church had a display of its former pastors who had been arrested and sent to the Gulag. It was like a little museum. Each pastor had preached the gospel and been sent off to prison. Some died there. Others returned to some form of normal life. The church cherished them enough to remember them in this public way. It was the first thing you saw when you walked through the front doors.
 
This church and their persecuted pastors came to mind this week, as our Bible study looked at Paul writing to the church in Philippi while he was in prison. The mutual prayer support, the words of assurance, the call to faithful living and unity in Christ shine across the Roman world and through the ages to the church and those pastors in the Gulag, and to us.
 
I’ve read of different descriptions of Paul in prison, different ways the ancient world treated their criminals. Prisoners were chained, as Paul describes himself “in chains.” Sometimes attached at the foot, sometimes at the neck. The rooms that were dark, with little or no light and little or no air circulation. Unsanitary conditions would have been an understatement, with rats and vermin. Little or no food. Guards exacting bribes for food or better treatment.
 
Some house arrest situations seem not as horrific. A prisoner of lesser crimes awaiting trial might be held in house arrest, but always with a guard, allowed visitors and food. It wasn’t freedom exactly. For our modern life sensibilities, the upper-story prison would be plenty bad enough. Still, in was no picnic.

Whatever Paul faced, the chains, darkness, lack of privacy, toilet indignities and the mocking and beating from other prisoners or guards themselves--even just one or two of these would easily give our weak constitutions more than we can handle.
 
I think probably Paul experienced many prison variations over the course of his ministry. His witness to the imperial guard and the household of Caesar happened through chains.
 
This week, I received photos of another sort. A friend and missionary sent me a photo of pastors at his church in Ukraine. It was an ordination that took place at an outdoor service of thanks. Each man is kneeling and the pastors behind them are praying as they commit their lives and future work to God and his ministry at church. You can see the fervor and faith as they kneel and close their eyes looking forward to futures of ministry and gospel outreach. Something’s coming for each of them. They have a future.

What will become of these people called to ministry in time of war? What of their families and their congregations? How many will com to faith under the ministries of these men? They may also be called into military service--what then? What if their country falls to their invader? These are open questions as the nation of Ukraine calls up more men to fight in their war. Yet there they are kneeling in prayer and faith.
 
It’s not this life but the next that motivates. It’s not an earthly father but the heavenly one we honor and serve. It’s not bad news but good that is our message. May we each carry it and speak it in whatever this day brings. I look at these four men an saw, "Yes." God's path is best and they are all in. May we be too. 
 
When we put on the glasses of faith, the lenses are dark. We are not yet seeing face to face, but with faith we know Jesus and follow him wherever the path may lead. Let us lean on his everlasting arms no matter what.

We celebrate and rejoice in Paul, even Paul in chains, we celebrate the pastors memorialized in the Russian church. We look forward with eager hearts to see how God will bless others through the pastors in Ukraine and us and and others all over the world, stepping forward, kneeling in service, willing to give themselves, body and soul, to Jesus and his gospel, our only hope and only reason to live at all.
 
For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake, engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had and now hear that I still have. Philippians 1:29-30
 
What have I to dread, what have I to fear,
Leaning on the everlasting arms?
I have blessed peace with my Lord so near,
Leaning on the everlasting arms.
 
Leaning, leaning,
Safe and secure from all alarms;
Leaning, leaning,
Leaning on the everlasting arms.

Blind Leading the Blind by Lorraine Triggs

It began with a simple, low-prep opening activity to the Bible story, “Abraham Followed God” for Kindergarten Bible school. Blindfold Teacher Wil and ask a few kids to give him directions to his promised coffee on the window ledge in our room.

It was a fine activity, until I thought it through a bit more on Sunday morning. You see, unlike adults' aversion to volunteering, I knew I would have 30 eager volunteers wanting to give directions to Teacher Wil. The question was how could I involve all of them? Then I walked into the preschool resource room for inspiration, and spotted the answer clearly labeled on a bin: foam hopscotch squares.

Back in the room, I randomly placed the squares on the floor. When it was time for large group and the activity, I grouped two-three kids around each square, the teachers strategically placed themselves between the squares, and Teacher Wil tied the blindfold over his eyes.

I stood by one of the squares and explained that when I stood by your square, it was your turn to guide Teacher Wil to the next square and number. They could say go straight, turn right, go back two steps and so on. We wanted Wil to get to his coffee at the last square.

It turned out to be a game of the blind leading the blind, as all the children shouted directions, clueless to right or left or straight—or the chairs until Wil crashed into them. We teachers added to the chorus, “Only give directions when it’s your turn. Teacher Wil can’t hear you.”

Despite the chaos, I am happy to report that Wil made it to his coffee without injury.

For a people who walk by faith, there are times we walk around more like the blind leading the blind, stumbling in the chaos that surrounds us. Unlike Abraham, who “went out, not knowing where he was going” (Hebrews 11:8), we want to know where we’re going. This uncertainty makes it easier to listen to other voices who promise to deliver the tangible results we want now, not later as we trek to a distant land. It can be tough to hear the right voice to follow when there are so many other voices shouting well-meaning but incorrect instructions.

Full disclosure here: I can handle the external chaos; it’s the loose ends in my life that I want tied up and neatly packaged. But what if those loose ends aren’t tied to the results I want, but tied, say to a shepherd’s staff that comforts me in the shadow of death. And what if that staff belongs to a very Good Shepherd who calls his own sheep by name, leads them to green pastures and still waters—who lays his life down for those sheep.

His is the only voice we need to hear and heed—the voice who calls us to follow him and his goodness and mercy all the days of our lives.

The Master has called us; the road may be dreary,
and dangers and sorrows are strewn on the track;
but God's Holy Spirit shall comfort the weary;
we follow the Savior and cannot turn back;
The Master has called us: though doubt and temptation
may compass our journey, we cheerfully sing:
"press onward, look upward," thru much tribulation;
the children of Zion must follow their King.
“The Master Hath Come”, verse two, Sarah Doudney

Engraved Invitation by Wil Triggs

It’s September, the month Lorraine and I got married.
 
We’ve been married for a lot of years, but not so many that I’ve forgotten the stress of not being married and planning our wedding. I remember it well. We had a weekly meeting to go over all of the nuts and bolts of our wedding plan.
 
The way we invite people to weddings has totally changed. We had engraved invitations sent out by mail with little reply cards enclosed so people could say if they were coming. 
 
Some might remember this response to a question with another albeit sarcastic question, “What do you want—an engraved invitation?” This is a rejoinder that has lost its meaning, I’m afraid.
 
So now would be the right time to tell you that our engraved invitation had a typo in it. It wasn’t either of our names. Most people might not notice or even know that it was wrong. But as two people working in communications, this was embarrassing to say the least. 
 
When Lorraine saw it, she said to me, “We can’t get married.” There wasn’t time to correct the mistake, so her answer was simple. No wedding.
 
From my way of thinking, we had two choices, mail the invitations out and live with it. Or don’t mail them and opt for a smaller venue. Not getting married was not one of the two options before us.
 
We mailed them out. People were gracious. We got married.
 
Most of the time now invitations are predictably electronic. We recently got a nicely designed announcement of a relative’s wedding. It’s on our refrigerator, and it directs us to the website where we can reply and also see their wedding registry. We are excited for them.
 
I have no idea how much their wedding is going to cost, but I know it will be a lot. 
 
One New York City couple featured in Brides magazine had an invitation list of 350 people. They would get married in a big cathedral, ride around the city in a double decker bus, stopping for photo ops at various landmarks, eat steak and lobster dinner in One Trade Center. The cost was about $150,000.
 
News agencies picked up the story, and the couple explained that they needed to figure out a way to winnow the guest from 350 to 60, the number of people who would fit on the double decker bus. “It was stressful,” the groom told the reporter. “We had to figure out a way for them to choose us, because we can’t choose them.”
 
So, this couple’s wedding invitation asked each invitee to purchase a ticket to the wedding day for $333 apiece. Problem solved: their guest list fell from 350 people invited to 60 who paid up. Everyone could fit on the bus.
 
A wedding between a man and a woman can be fraught--tensions with relatives or about-to-be relatives, disagreements between the bride and groom, more bills than necessary, awkwardnesses of where to seat different people, weather, food, flowers, the list could go on and on. 
 
The day comes and something new is born. The church witnesses the wonder: two become one. But there is more.
 
God’s invitation needs no whittling down. His invitation is extravagant, probably reckless from a mere human perspective. It’s a head-crushing invitation. This invitation can drown an army in a river, close the mouths of ravenous lions, keep people alive in the hottest of furnace fires. It’s a man impaled on a spike he fashioned for his enemy. It’s the hated brother who all but died rescuing the ones who threw him into a pit to die. It’s oasis in drought. It’s wine where water belongs. Its words engraved on hearts, a message written on bloodied hands and the side of the groom himself. It’s the proclaiming of love above all else. It’s the bride blushing with the realization that the groom longs for her. From betrayed to betrothed, she turns to him and says the words from the Last Supper with a new meaning, “Is it I?” (Mark 14:19)
 
Oil lamps filled in anticipation. Yes. Come.
 
Coming to the pagan jungles of Manhattan to the prisons of North Korea to the apartment churches hiding from electronic surveillance in China to the Christian widow in the Middle East who lives with her son and daughter-in-law who want her out of the apartment she gave them when her husband died, out because she believes in Jesus--all of them turning to Jesus with the blushing, humble shy beauty of a maiden who senses a love never before cast her way, looking into his eager eyes, she marvels, “Is it I?”
 
The Marriage Supper of the Lamb
Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out,
 
“Hallelujah!
For the Lord our God
    the Almighty reigns.
Let us rejoice and exult
    and give him the glory,
for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
    and his Bride has made herself ready;
it was granted her to clothe herself
    with fine linen, bright and pure”—
 
for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.
 
And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.”
(Revelation 19:6-9)

An Expert in Resiliency by Lorraine Triggs

The title of the essay caught my attention: “I Used to Be Resilient. What Happened?” The writer, Erik Vance, went on to say that defining resiliency is tricky. We often think of it as standing up to adversity or the ability to bounce back or adaptability.

Vance wanted to go deeper than what he described as a “sort of tough-guy stiff upper lip” resiliency, so he talked to Michael Ungar, a professor of social work at Dalhousie University in Canada, who said that resilience is multiple processes that will make it possible for you to thrive under stress.”

In the essay, Vance cited an expert who said that she “has found the most powerful predictor of resilience to traumatic events is your connection to something larger than your own self, whether it’s God, family, country or just the local P.T.A.”

If thriving under stress is the mark of resiliency, the Apostle Paul may have been the most resilient person ever.

Wrote the apostle to his community (another predictor of resilience) who lived in Corinth, “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.” (2 Corinthians 4:8‒9)

Resiliency experts also said that finding what keeps you balanced is crucial to resiliency—or not, if you’re Paul, our resident resiliency expert. He blurred the lines between work-life balance, with labors, sleepless nights, hunger, being poured out as a drink offering, all part of the job.

Paul certainly was resilient, but not for the reasons the experts gave. Paul flourished under stress because he knew that “suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”  (Romans 5:3‒5)

I don't always flourish under trials. I can be nagged by guilt of what I could have done to avoid the suffering, or there's a sense of shame that I am not quite up to living the victorious Christian life. Why else am I suffering?

Until I reread what Paul wrote in Romans. What? No guilt or shame there, but hope and God's love poured into my heart to his glory? I’m not ready to claim Paul’s title of the most resilient person ever, but I am ready to thrive and flourish.

The graced truth behind trials is that we never had the ability to flourish or bounce back on our own. We had to depend on another’s ability to bounce back from death to life, humility to exaltation, and along the way he calls enemies friends, makes old, new and turns light, momentary afflictions into eternal weights of glory.