Bottom line up front: God’s Commendation Medal

Introduction: I know of no one who does not appreciate being commended. Whether it’s an “Attaboy/girl,” or a friendly slap on the back, or a commendation medal of some ilk, most people would concede that praise is a welcome occasion.

Our Spiritual Lives & the Question of Spiritual Resilience: We train our bodies, our marksmanship, our mental acuity, our abilities to accomplish sundry missions, etc. All well, good, and necessary in the profession of arms. But what about our spiritual lives? What are ways in which we might cultivate spiritual disciplines into our lives? How might we labor for that type of commendation?

Illustration: On a deployment I was on several years ago, I had a commander that I grew to deeply respect. He was a to-the-point, matter-of-fact type man but who was by no means cold or aloof. He was simply very streamlined in his approach to command and to his life as a whole. Nothing seemed wasted with him. He told us in a staff meeting one time in Iraq that each day, a part of his regimen involved growing in at least three areas: physically, intellectually, and spiritually. I like that trinitarian approach. And we’d see him each day. He’d do his PT for the physical regimen; he’d study, read, and develop professionally via continuous education for the intellectual pieces; and spiritually, he was and remains a Christian, and so he’d attend chapel services, read the Scriptures, associate with fellow believers, pray, and lead his family spiritually.

Encouragement/takeaway: When Paul penned his letter to the Thessalonians in the late 40s in the 1st. c. A.D., Paul commended his audience this way–namely, that they had “turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come” (1 Thessalonians 1:9-10, ESV). Think of that–a letter of commendation from the apostle Paul. What did Paul commend them for? In short, he commended them for forsaking idolatry and embracing the truth.

Spiritual resilience is not to be confused with empty bromides of psycho-babble or fortune cookie cliches. Wise spiritual resilience must be rooted in the objective truth of ultimate reality, and that means discerning the truth from falsehood. May we ground our spiritual resilience upon the One who is truth itself.