4:13 Podcast: Can I Be Resilient When Life Is a Mess? With Daniel Fusco [Episode 238]

Daniel Fusco: What we have a tendency to do is when things make us stressed -- right? -- we kind of just give in to the stress. But one of the things I talk about in my book "You're Gonna to Make It" is that when we feel stressed, that is our body's response to uncertainty.

Jennifer Rothschild: Most people are just trying to get through the next 24 hours, much less trying to get through the next storm, the next stress, the next crisis. But today's guest, author and pastor Daniel Fusco, wants you to know that you are going to make it. On this episode of The 4:13, he is going to help you unlock resilience when life is a mess, and he will guide you to survive the maddening chaos of this crazy world. So get ready to uncover the way to resilience, perseverance, and grit.

K.C. Wright: Let's go. Welcome to the 4:13 Podcast, where practical encouragement and biblical wisdom set you up to live the "I Can" life, because you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you.

Now, welcome your host, Jennifer Rothschild.

Jennifer Rothschild: Hey, there, our friends. Jennifer here to help you be and do more than you feel capable of as you live the "I Can" life. It's just me and K.C. here in the closet.

K.C. Wright: Hey, hey.

Jennifer Rothschild: Two friends, one topic, zero stress --

K.C. Wright: Zero stress.

Jennifer Rothschild: -- good times.

I wanted to let you know that next week I am going to be in Fort Worth, Texas --

K.C. Wright: Woo-hoo.

Jennifer Rothschild: -- for a Fresh Grounded Faith.

K.C. Wright: (Singing) The Stars at Night.

Jennifer Rothschild: Annie F. Downs is going to be there, Tammy Trent is going to be there, Sean Groves. It's going to be a great weekend. So if you're close by, I want you to join us. You'll have a link on the Show Notes to find us, but it's Fresh Grounded Faith. You can just Google that and you'll find where me and Annie F. and Tammy Trent and Sean Groves will be in Fort Worth. And I hope to see you guys there.

We're talking today about resilience. And I just -- this has nothing to do with what we're talking about, but I have to tell you what happened. Okay. So we've got these three little grand boys that are phenomenally adorable. And so we had baptism at our church a couple weeks ago, and Phil's like, you know, "I want to take the little guys." And I'm saying to him, you know, "They may be a little young to really understand this." He's like, "No, they need to be exposed." I'm like, "Okay, cool." So he takes them to watch the baptism. And it's very sweet.

And so Phil's whispering explanation of what's happening while it's happening, and the five-year-old, Tripp, he's like, "Pops, I want to do that. I want to do that." After every baptism he saw, "Pops, I want to do that. I want to do that." And every time, Tripp would say, "Pops, I want to do that," little Lawson, who's three, would say, "Don't make me do that. Don't make me do that. Don't make me do that." It was the funniest thing.

So Phil brings home this little audio recording of them watching their first baptism. It was hilarious. Tripp was ready to jump in the water; Lawson was like, "Don't you let me get near that thing." It was so cute. It was so sweet. I can't wait till they get older and they come to understand the claims of Christ. And I know they will trust him. It'll be very sweet for them to hear, "Can I do that?" "Don't make me do that." And it fits their personalities too. Tripp's like, How can I be compliant? Lawson's like, Don't even think about it. It's awesome.

Anyway, today we're talking with a pastor who well understands that whole baptism scenario. But I love what he's talking about today, because he's, like, in the trenches with his people. He knows sometimes we struggle, and you just wonder if you're going to make it. And you're going to hear today, yeah, you're going to make it, and here's how.

K.C. Wright: Daniel Fusco is an author, a church planter, and the lead pastor of Crossroads Community Church in Vancouver, Washington. His radio program "Jesus is Real Radio," is broadcast across the country, and his TV show "Real with Daniel Fusco," airs across the globe. He also hosts the popular Crazy Happy with Daniel Fusco Podcast and is the author of -- I love his book -- "Crazy Happy" and "You're Gonna Make It." "Crazy Happy" is so fun right there.

Jennifer Rothschild: What a good title.

K.C. Wright: My gosh. He has written numerous articles for CBN.com, preachingtoday.com and Relevant. He enjoys taking the truth of Scripture and making it understandable and applicable for men and women of all ages, cultures, and backgrounds. Daniel and his wife, Lynn, have three beautiful children and live in Southwest Washington.

So settle in. Get ready for a great conversation. Here we go.

Jennifer Rothschild: All right, Daniel, let's start with what we've all been through over the last many years and how it has -- well, or if it has impacted us in the area of resilience. I would love your opinion about that.

Daniel Fusco: Well, there's no doubt, Jennifer, that all of us over the last number of years have been impacted. I think for most of us, what we realized, especially when everything kind of started in 2020 with the whole cornucopia of what went on in our culture, we all realized that even if we thought of ourselves as pretty resilient people, we kind of like, Where are we going to find the resilience to walk through this? Like, I'm an all-Italian kid from New Jersey, so I was raised, like, you just don't stop moving, you just keep going forward. And even the number of times people said to me or I caught myself saying to myself, I don't know if we're going to make it -- right? -- it was like -- and I realized that we were in something that we needed to find the resilience that God had already given us; but for many of us, it was just hard to unlock it and walk in it in the midst of all that was going on.

Jennifer Rothschild: Well, it's interesting, with a New Jersey attitude, it is a just do it, grit, man up, pull it off. And I think a lot of people wanted to have that attitude, but realized perhaps -- you know, I think, Daniel, the pandemic didn't create all this; it exposed it.

Daniel Fusco: Yes.

Jennifer Rothschild: And so they didn't know where to get it from. And so you write in your book that our stressful situations are also God's opportunities, and that's when stressful experiences actually make us more like Jesus. Okay. So I would love for you to unpack how that happens, because I think that's what we need.

Daniel Fusco: Yeah. So there's no doubt that for each one of us, when things go on -- like, we want to be there, but what I always like to tell people is that our lives are the curriculum that God wants to make us fruitful. So what we have a tendency to do is when things make us stressed -- right? -- we kind of just give into the stress.

But one of the things I talk about in my book "You're Gonna Make It," is that when we feel stressed, that is our body's response to uncertainty. Now, if you think about that, the desire to follow Jesus, we're walking by faith, not by sight. So we're following Jesus really into uncertainty. He has a plan. And so what I've learned is that when I'm feeling stressed, that is an invitation from Jesus that, hey, I have to walk by faith. These things are uncertain. But even though the circumstances may be uncertain, my Savior isn't. There's nothing more certain than Jesus, his finished work, the fact that he's with us at street level where our lives are happening.

And so when we see stress as an invitation, then we draw near to the Lord -- right? -- we learn how to cast our cares upon him. All these things that our Bibles teach us, but we often don't think that the stimulus of stress or fear or worry or suffering is actually God's invitation saying, okay, come to me and let me do my work in real time in your life.

Jennifer Rothschild: That's good. Because often when we're feeling the stress or uncertainty, we try to solve it, mitigate it, get rid of it. But what you're saying is no. Let it be a pathway. Let it be redeemed. Let it be a trigger that says, okay, you're feeling something that is normal. Uncertainty should make us feel uncomfortable, so that's when we go to the Rock who's higher than I. And that's so -- almost counterintuitive, Daniel. You know, even when we're walking with the Lord, we still need to be reminded. I need to be reminded of that.

And I know you also say in your book that resilience is fueled by hope. Okay? And I think this is an interesting connection. So I'd like you to tell us about that. Why is hope important to having resilience, to be able to walk by faith?

Daniel Fusco: Okay. So the whole book, I have what I call the resilience equation. I just lifted it right out of Hebrews 12:2, you know, where it says that we're looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated down at the right hand of the Father. And so the equation is hope for the joy that was set before him; plus grit, which is just despising --

Jennifer Rothschild: He endured.

Daniel Fusco: -- the shame -- he endured the cross -- and then ultimately -- and that leads us to an unstoppable resilience, which is ultimately really being glorified with Jesus. And so I tell people that hope is essential to resilience, because really hope is a settled confidence in the God of all hope. I don't want to talk about -- our culture loves talking about hope as, like, a nebulous concept, a warm fuzzy feeling, which it can be. But really for a Christian, biblical hope has a name, and his name is Jesus. It's rooted in the God of all hope.

And what I tell people is that hope is essential to resilience, because we need a mindset knowing that even though it's uncertain what's going to happen, we know that God holds it in his hands, that God has already written the story, how it's going to play out, and that we're in the middle chapters. And if you don't have hope, you actually won't be resilient. Or if you are resilient and you keep going to the end, when you get to the end of the journey, instead of being wholehearted, joyful having lived the abundant life, we have a tendency to be cynical, jaded, and hard-hearted, which is not what Jesus wants for us.

So hope is essential. Because if we make it to the end, we want to be more like Jesus. And if we don't have hope, then if we make -- normally we'll quit. Or if we do hang on to the end because we have that, like, I'm-never-going-to-quit attitude, at the end of the journey you're not more like Jesus, which is ultimately God's goal for all of us.

Jennifer Rothschild: Okay. That right there, my friend, what an integral formula. Because some of us have the personality, the dogged commitment, I'm not going to quit if it kills me. I'm just going to -- and then you get to the end and you're right, you don't look more like Jesus, you just exposed how much more you needed Jesus. And you had a great will of your own, but -- that is so good, especially for people, okay, like me, who tend to be super gritty, like, I'm not willing to quit. That is such a good word. Lord, may we hear that and take it in. I appreciate that so much. You're right, it is essential to have that hope. I love that, I really do. Thank you so much.

And listeners, he was going through Hebrews 12:1-2 for that formula. Hope plus grit equals resilience.

Daniel Fusco: Unstoppable resilience.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah. That's so good.

Daniel Fusco: Now, if I could say something, Jennifer, about the grit piece.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

Daniel Fusco: So for someone like you or I, and I'm sure a lot of people who are listening to us, they have that kind of won't quit attitude, right? They'll just keep going. But one of the things that I talk about is grit is not just like the John Wayne style grit. Or there's a great book by Angela Duckworth, very well researched about the science of perseverance.

But the way I define "grit" in the book is doing the right things the right way, for the right reasons, no matter the outcome. Because what I have found is that when we're in the crucible of stress or fear and worry or suffering, because God's goal is to build us and make us more like Jesus, that Jesus likeness that Paul talks about in the Book of Romans -- really it's all through our Bibles -- we have a tendency in hard times to start cutting corners. We just want to get to the end. And I try and encourage people in the book that we love the outcome, but God loves the process. And so the key for us is real biblical grit is not just white-knuckling it to the end, it's continuing to do the right things, the things we know that's the will of God, in the right ways, doing God's work, God's ways for all the right reasons. So we're doing the hard work, we're really trying to be people of integrity, and no matter the outcome.

Because even -- what I always tell people is if this goes bad at the end, you're going to want to actually like the person that you are when you get there. And as believers, the only time we like the person that we are is when we see more of the attributes of Jesus and the characteristics of Jesus in our lives. And so even if things are going to go bad, we still want to do the right things the right way. And I think that really leads us into, again, like, Jesus, only you can help us do that. Because if you think of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, taking the -- I mean, the whole journey for Jesus was he always did those things that pleased his Father, even if it got him into trouble.

Jennifer Rothschild: Wow. Okay. This is good stuff. If I'm ever in the Washington area, I'm coming to your church, Brother. This is so good.

All right, let's talk about stress. Because no matter what our level of perseverance, our desire, our hopefulness, the whole nine yards, we still experience stress. Sometimes we just can't remove it, we can't reduce it. Okay? So how can we grow resilience in the middle of it?

Daniel Fusco: Okay, that's a great question. And, now, this is what I want to tell everybody. I'm talking about this because I'm a student of it and I'm working on it every day. You know, sometimes when you talk about these things, it almost sounds like you know what you're doing. And I love the fact that Jesus is constantly saying, Hey, listen, I want to grow you in this.

I always tell people that the key to winning the battle against stress or fear and worry is you have to be fighting the battle. So we have this illusion that if we believe in Jesus, that life will not have stress or there won't be things that make us worried. And that's just not what the Bible teaches. I mean, look at the life of any biblical character and what you find is they're following the will of God, and they find themselves in sometimes even more stressful situations. You think of the Apostle Paul and it's like he was stoned with rocks, he was beaten and left for dead, he got his 40 lashes minus one. He ended up in jail, he was shipwrecked, and he's following God. And so what I'd like to tell people is that in a fallen world, as we follow our Savior, stress is going to be part of what we deal with.

And so it's okay -- the myth of a stress-free life is actually -- that is not what's going to happen on this side of eternity. Now, don't get me wrong, God gives us that beautiful passage in Philippians 4 -- right? -- that we should be anxious for nothing, but in everything, with prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, we should let our requests be made known to the Lord. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

See, there are going to be stressful and anxious situations, but we get to have peace within it. So every day I should expect stressful things to go on, so really the key to winning the battle is being willing to fight the battle every day. And I think we've become culturally, in our minds at least, a little entitled. Like, I'll know I'm in God's best when my life is stress free.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah. Right.

Daniel Fusco: And it's like, that's just not what -- our Bibles don't give us that. Like, that's a fairy tale that is not in our Bibles. See, what God wants to do is he wants to redeem these things. So we see when I'm following Jesus, we should feel -- I mean, Jennifer, think about your own life. As you're stepping out in ministry, there are those times when you just feel like, oh, my gosh, like, God, this is never going to work. You got the wrong girl. Like, I feel this every day, I'm like, Lord, I'm the wrong person for this.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yes. Yes, I get that.

Daniel Fusco: But you lean into it and then God meets you there, and then God gives you peace and you grapple through it. And then as you keep stepping out with the Lord, new things happen. There's new uncertainties, there's new concerns, but God keeps meeting with us. And then before you know it, we're like, oh, I kind of look forward to the craziness of what today is going to be because I know that God's going to work in the midst of it, and that's really the life that God has for us in Christ.

Jennifer Rothschild: That's so good. And it's also an affirmation to allow that uncertainty, allow that stress to become a friend to you that God is using to train you, to grow you, to bring you to more identity with Christ in likeness. I think that's such a good point. And I just got to repeat -- I'm paraphrasing you. But you basically said the only battles that you win are the ones you're willing to fight. And so not to look at this as something that should go away, but it's okay to hit the daily tarmac and just do the thing. And then we get to a point of -- sometimes we think success is alleviation of the suffering or the stress, but success is just obedience in the midst of it. And that's such a good word, Daniel.

So I want to talk about something that for you personally I read, that I know required hope, grit, resilience, all of it. You were in college when something happened to your mom. So could you share that with us.

Daniel Fusco: Yes. So unfortunately, when I was 19 years old -- I was finishing my first year of college -- my mom was diagnosed with cancer. And, you know, I said earlier that I'm an all-Italian kid from New Jersey, and so very much like the Italian matriarch, my mom was -- you know, all moms are glue in a lot of ways. In my home, my mom was like an industrial grade Department of Defense super glue. She was just larger than life, and just such an amazing person. But she got really sick. And at the time, I didn't know Jesus. And so over the next two years, she battled and ultimately lost her battle with cancer when she was 49. I was 21 years old.

And I was -- Jennifer, to be honest, I was completely ill equipped to deal with that. I didn't know anything about anything, and very quickly my life really was off -- it was already off the rails before she got sick, but then when she passed away, it got really bad. And in the midst of me being broken, being completely unprepared to deal with what I was dealing with, Jesus met me. So my salvation story, it happened -- Jesus revealed himself to me about nine months after my mother passed away. And then Jesus began to put me back together. And what I realized is that in the face of such a great tragedy, at that point I had no tools.

And then I fast forward to what we've dealt with over the last three years, and really the genesis or the impetus to write the book "You're Gonna Make It." I realized that I had learned a lot of tools, but I was -- like everyone else, was struggling to kind of find, hey, like, how do I not just survive this, or how do I not just white knuckle this, but how do I allow this to grow my faith, to make me more like Jesus, that I can look back on it and see even though that was hard, that "but God" reality of the Book of Romans -- excuse me -- the Book of Ephesians Chapter 2 where it says everything's bad, but God, who is rich and mercy.

And I want everyone to have that. When the things are the hardest, I want them to have that Ephesians 2, "but God" reality, where they're like, this is hard, but this is what my God did. This is how God worked. And in a lot of ways, our Bible is the testimony of "this is bad, but God." And so I'm experiencing that presently, I experienced it years ago, and I just really want to help encourage people to get their eyes onto the Lord, the God of resurrection, the God of redemption, the God of all hope, the all-sufficient One, so that he can not let us lose and diminish the light that he has placed within us, but he can allow his light to shine through us into a world that is so struggling with hope. It's so struggling to find any sort of peace in this generation.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah. And we can be, we can be his light.

So mentioning that about your mom -- and I'm a mom of sons, and I can only imagine that heartbreak. It must have given you, at some point when it all eased up a little, an interesting perspective on eternity. So you write in your book that it's easy to get focused on what's in front of us now, but we need to see it as temporary. So if we can focus on what we see now as temporary, we also need to understand that there are unseen things that are eternal. Okay? So how do you develop and then practically keep an eternal perspective?

Daniel Fusco: Oh, that's a great question. So for me, it's an everyday -- like, every day I have to kind of re-up on trying to look at life through the lens of the finished work of Jesus, the Scriptures, the work of the Spirit, and eternity.

So I remember when my mom passed away, I had never had one thought about eternity. But when my mother -- when she breathed her last breath, she was at home on Hospice in our house, and it was such a jarring experience. And I had no framework through which to process it, not only personally, but, like, what just happened? Never thought about death before. And very quickly it was like -- I mean, like, this is strange. I remember her body was there, but I'm like, but she's not there. And I was aware of that, but I didn't know what to do with it. And so that made me have to think about, okay, what happens after this?

And then I was searching all the religions, because I was kind of raised kind of culturally Catholic, but very much like kind of Catholic in name, not -- we never prayed. We went to church from time to time, but never spoke about the things of God at home or in life. And I had a super loving family, so I love my family so much. It's just that they just weren't there.

And so I remember when I started reading the Scriptures and I started to realize that, okay, eternity's a long time. And then you start reading things in, like, Romans Chapter 8, "For I'm convinced that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that's going to be revealed in the children of God." And you're just like, whoa.

And so I started to realize that -- I like to say that for all of us in our trials and our sufferings and the struggles of life, that we're always in the middle chapters. And if you think about a movie -- you know, like, we live in an entertainment culture. In any good drama, the story starts, and at some point you hit, like, the sad music where everything seems like it's falling apart, you know? And every time that happens, I'm like, I have been there a million times. I don't have the background music, but I feel like that way. Everything's kind of -- all the chips are down. But the movie really never ends there. And the beauty is is for the child of God, we know that the story doesn't end there because we know that the best is yet to come. We know that God is going to wipe away every tear from every eye. We know that there's going to be no pain and no suffering. You know, all that is broken is going to be made right again. Like, our Bibles end in the most powerful way with the restoration of all things.

And so then I look at what's going on and I'm like, God, the only way for me to be able to be resilient and hope filled and live the abundant life that Jesus died and rose again and empowered me to live is for me to keep in mind that this story does not end here. And that changes a lot because you realize, man, I'm in the first quarter, to use a football reference. I'm in the second ending, to use the baseball reference, and say, I'm just in the beginning of this thing. I'm in the first chapter of the book right now. And the story that God is writing is absolutely exquisite and powerful and redemptive, and so I can hope in the midst of the most horrendous situations.

Jennifer Rothschild: It reminds me of what you just shared, too, from Hebrews 12. I mean, that's what Jesus did. For the joy that was set before him, he looked beyond. So thank you, Lord, for that kind of hope.

I want to talk to Daniel about just the practicality of our thoughts -- okay? -- when it comes to this subject. Because you write that in times of suffering or in times of struggle and messy situations, you say, "I am learning that I can't just listen to myself." Okay? Amen. So what do you do to focus and get yourself out of your own echo chamber?

Daniel Fusco: Yeah. So it begins with that idea that listening to ourselves is not the best idea. Like, there's that old saying people love to say, "Oh, you just follow your heart." I'm like, "No, don't follow your heart. Follow Jesus and lead your heart."

Now, in the same way, there's that old saying, you know -- was it -- Cartesian philosophy -- right? -- like, "I think; therefore, I am." And I say, "Well, hold on." Like, yes, we think, or we should, but not all of our thinking is biblical or Jesus saturated. And so the first thing I have to realize, I have to be able to be willing to be honest enough with myself to confess that sometimes my thought life, I'm not putting on the mind of Christ. And we all know that that downward spiral in our thought life when something bad happens, and then we compound it with all these narratives and stories that aren't redemptive, they're not Spirit filled, they're not focused on Jesus, but they're just us being negative, we have to acknowledge that it's happening.

And so I love my bride, Lynn. She's such an amazing person. And I remember one day I was going to go work out. And I don't really like working out, and I'm like, "Man, I hate working out." And she's like, "Daniel, God is not negative." And it was so convicting. And I was like, "Oh." And so then I started to say, "I love working out" -- right? -- because I'm like -- and I didn't really feel that, but in some ways I had to force myself to think differently about something that I know is good for me but I didn't want to do. And so in the same way, when I catch myself in that negative thinking, I need to stop and say, this is not the mind of Christ. This is not me loving God with all of my mind. Like Jesus said in the Greatest Commandment, quoting the book of Deuteronomy, that we should love the Lord our God with all of our mind.

And so we have to own the fact that sometimes our thinking is kind of stinking. It's just not good thoughts. It's not biblical thoughts. And we start by acknowledging it. And then we say, if this is not the mind of Christ, then I need to substitute in the mind of Christ. And so one of the ways I tell people to do that simply is be in your Bible every day and make sure you memorize Scripture. Just having Scripture to remember.

Now, someone's bound to say, Well, listen, that's great, Daniel, but I'm not good at that, I want to just encourage you, grab an index card, write a Scripture on each side, one-sentence Scripture, and put it in your pocket. And every time you reach for your keys, every time you reach for your phone, pull it out. Or if you have a smartphone, just put it on your lock screen, put a Scripture and just read it. You'll memorize it pretty quickly.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yes, you will.

Daniel Fusco: And then when that's going on, when you catch yourself having those thoughts, then those Scriptures should pop up into our hearts and say, listen, I can trust God. You know, what does it say, Proverbs 3? "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he'll direct your path." Right? It's like right there. And say, okay, I'm not trusting God. I'm trusting in my boss, I'm trusting in my 401, whatever it is. No, I'm trusting in the Lord. And I'm not going to trust, I'm not going to lean, put weight on my own understanding. So, Lord, you know my understanding's messed up right now, but you know what's going on, and I trust you. I believe, Lord. Help my unbelief. All of these Scriptures. And you let the Word of God fight against the downward spiral of negative thinking that is so common for all of us, no matter how long we've been walking with Jesus.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah. And it's a slippery slope. So that's why catching it at the first thought by the grace of God just protects you from that downward spiral. Such a good word.

And, you know, Daniel, we can memorize. The Lord will equip us to do what he knows is good for us. So if we can memorize our phone number and our children's names, we can memorize a verse of Scripture. So let's do it. I'm with you on that.

All right. This is such a good conversation, which represents what a very good book this is going to be for you listeners, so you need to get it. But we're going to have to hit our last question. Okay, so here it is. What are a few ways that someone -- because they're listening and they're like, okay, I need this resilience. Okay? So, Daniel, give us a few ways that a person can build a healthy foundation so they can start to grow resilience.

Daniel Fusco: Okay. So the key to the foundation, really the whole enchilada as they say, of resilience is knowing Jesus. I mean, Jesus is the most resilient person who ever lived. I mean, like, leaving heaven's glory, coming to earth, going through all of his life, obviously his crucifixion, like, Jesus is textbook resilient. So we need to know Jesus.

But then with knowing Jesus, all of the kind of classic ways that we grow with Jesus is still the ways to unlock resilience. So we talked about memorizing Scripture in the Bible. Becoming a person of prayer. I mean, you think about Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. As he knows what's going to happen, he's unlocking resilience in his own heart. He's got Peter, James, and John. Don't miss that. Even our Lord needed a tribe of people around him to do it. He wanted those guys there. It's so amazing.

So I've been talking to a lot of people. With all that's gone on in the pandemic, people have gotten more isolated, people have detached from long-term friendships, and a lot of people have detached from their local churches, you know. And so it's like, we need one another. Just the way my wife spoke into my life. And I have friends who when things are going on, they reach on out. I always make sure when someone's going through a hard time, if I know them, I'm constantly reaching out, Hey, I'm praying for you. Hey, is there anything I can do to help you? Just want to sit and talk and have coffee, we can just sit here and cry, we don't have to say anything. You know, we need people. And if someone's listening to this, like, well, I don't have any people, I want to encourage you to go to a local church that teaches the Scriptures.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yes.

Daniel Fusco: I always tell people that the people of God are at their best when life is the worst. You know, and it's like -- because they are. And it's like -- and so if you don't have those people, go to a local church. And I know -- someone's bound to say, Well, you know, Daniel that's great, but maybe you're gregarious, and I'm shy and I'm nervous. Listen, even if you just start by driving to the church's parking lot on Sunday morning. You don't even have to go in. Just get used to driving to the parking lot. And then at some point when you drive there, then say, okay, I'm going to go in and I'm going to sing a couple songs. Just like -- I know sometimes we have to take those baby steps of faith where we're just kind of getting ourselves going. But building in that habit. You need people. Because God -- you know, I always like to remind people, Jesus' most famous prayer, the model prayer that we call Our --he doesn't start by saying "My Father," he says "Our Father." Because our faith is a community sport. It's a family. And so we see ourselves in community, so that's such an important thing.

And then I always like to remind people that because life won't stop for us to unlock resilience, we have to train resilience while we're in the race. So every single day saying today -- there's going to be opportunities for me to walk in resilience. And we have to just own that and just say, okay, God, I'm going to step into that and I'm going to trust that as I take the step of faith, to not just check out, but really push through this, I'm going to have hope and I'm going to trust that you're going to empower me to do it.

Jennifer Rothschild: Knowing Jesus is the foundation for resilience, as Daniel said. Jesus is textbook resilience. So we get to know him and we grow with Jesus. Memorize scripture; become a person of prayer like Jesus was; and then, like Daniel said, get with your people.

K.C. Wright: Yes. And I thought it was so powerful that he said to train resilience while you're in the race.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah, that was good.

K.C. Wright: In other words, step into it, walk by faith, push through with hope. And this is K.C. speaking now. I'm saying, Jesus meets you on the water. He never meets you in the boat, right?

Jennifer Rothschild: Good word.

K.C. Wright: So you need his book, "You're Gonna Make It." You really are. Go to the Show Notes at 413podcast.com/238 to get the book and get connected with this podcast. And get this, we're giving away three copies right now.

Jennifer Rothschild: Wow. I love that.

K.C. Wright: Not one copy, but three. Okay? So all you have to do to win, go to Jennifer's Instagram. That is @jennrothschild on Instagram. Or you can get it through the Show Notes now. Besides, you want to read those Show Notes because Pastor Daniel gave so many truth bombs that we all need to go back and review. What a great resource there at 413podcast.com.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah, so true. Such good stuff today. And I am so grateful for the truths that Daniel shared.

So until next week, our people, remember, you are going to make it. You can take the next step, not quit, have hope, walk by faith, because you can do all things through Christ who gives you strength. I can.

K.C. Wright: I can.

Jennifer Rothschild: And you can.

K.C. Wright: You can. True story. Life is sometimes messy --

Jennifer Rothschild: Yes, it is.

K.C. Wright: -- because we all have issues.

Jennifer Rothschild: We've all got issues. You've got more than me, K.C., I'll just say.

K.C. Wright: Well --

Jennifer Rothschild: Just kidding. You don't.

K.C. Wright: If you don't think you have an issue, that's your issue.

Jennifer Rothschild: That's your issue. And we all need resilience.

K.C. Wright: That's right.

Jennifer Rothschild: (Singing) You're gonna make it.