This is perhaps the most challenging of all five characteristics of high resiliency – facing failure with enthusiasm!

Why would we do that?

Because choosing joy, no matter what, releases extraordinary power in our lives.

When we let go of the outcomes and simply serve the Lord in the moment with our heart, soul, mind, and strength, we are fearless. We aren’t thinking about failure, only the mission. We press in with anticipation and excitement over what might happen. Then if our efforts fail in some way, we know with confidence that God was in it all and working His plan.

That freedom to serve without hesitation or fear of failure is what makes us different from most other people. It’s what makes us leaders. It makes us more like Jesus!

We also know because of God’s goodness and sovereignty, that whatever happens He will transform into beauty, testimony, and greater influence. Failure is one of God’s greatest tools!

God promises to turn our mourning into dancing, our ashes into beauty, and our sorrow into joy. He doesn’t say there won’t be mourning, ashes, and sorrow, but that that those are launching pads to the extraordinary life!

In John 12:24, Jesus uses the image of a seed with a protective coating that has to fall off for the seed to flourish. “Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” (NIV)

There will be situations that feel like failure. We might feel embarrassed or even humiliated. But when that happens, we can know with certainty, God is growing goodness from it.

In Genesis 50, Joseph says to his brothers who tried to kill him, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” (NIV)

A high-resiliency person knows … God’s ways and plans are always good. We can run into life without fear because God’s holding us and always doing what is best for us.

James tells us to consider hard things pure joy because they strengthen our faith.

So let’s do this! Let’s become extraordinary people of high resiliency so that God can do more than we can ask or imagine – for us and through us.