Life Is Painful. Flourish Anyway.

“Life is pain, Your Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.”
~The Dread Pirate Roberts in The Princess Bride

Work, an integral part of life, is captured in this pithy quote from the movie, The Princess Bride. It wasn’t meant to be this way. In Genesis 2, work was simply creative and productive—until the Fall in Genesis 3 transformed it into a painful, difficult punishment. Like the rest of the world, work became broken.

So it should not surprise us when we encounter seasons of “painful toil” in our work. There will be impossible customers, uncooperative employees, unethical bosses, intractable team members, market crashes, security breaches, supply chain shortages, funding cuts, corporate takeovers, unforeseen layoffs… the list is endless.

The problem isn’t that we don’t know these things will happen. The problem is that when these things happen to us, particularly when several of them occur simultaneously, it’s painful.

The Promise of Flourishing and the Problem of Pain

These seasons of pain can be particularly troubling in light of the promises we read in Scripture. For example, the prophet Jeremiah offered hope to the people of Israel in their painful season with these words from the Lord:

Cursed is the one who trusts in man,
who draws strength from mere flesh
and whose heart turns away from the Lord.

That person will be like a bush in the wastelands;
they will not see prosperity when it comes.
They will dwell in the parched places of the desert,
in a salt land where no one lives.

But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord,
whose confidence is in him.

They will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit. (Jeremiah 17.5-8, NIV)

For followers of Jesus, we too are promised that we can flourish—and even be fruitful—in the driest of deserts and in the most painful seasons of suffering.

For followers of Jesus, we too are promised that we can flourish—and even be fruitful—in the driest of deserts and in the most painful seasons of suffering.

Yet this can seem like an impossibility when we’re suffering, stressed, or under attack. It’s common and entirely understandable to feel depressed, anxious, worried, angry, or the entire spectrum of emotions. It may seem that we’re stuck, spinning our wheels, or worse, failing.

Often, the last thing we feel like we’re doing in hard times is flourishing.

Reinterpreting Flourishing

One of the reasons why we struggle to feel like we’re flourishing in hard times is that we’re constantly told, in no uncertain terms, that flourishing is defined by what we do.

In our world of metrics, productivity, and achievement, flourishing is often equated with increasing numbers, output, or activity. But in the De Pree Center’s Flourishing Leaders research, we understand a “flourishing leader” as someone who

• has a clear sense of a call to follow God
• is oriented by hope
• attends to their inner work during crucible moments
• doesn’t do it alone

Our research makes it clear that the world’s understanding and definition of flourishing is flawed. Flourishing is less about external benchmarks and more about internal indicators.

Flourishing is less about external benchmarks and more about internal indicators.

Jesus put it this way:

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vineyard keeper. He removes any of my branches that don’t produce fruit, and he trims any branch that produces fruit so that it will produce even more fruit.

You are already trimmed because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. A branch can’t produce fruit by itself, but must remain in the vine. Likewise, you can’t produce fruit unless you remain in me.

I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, then you will produce much fruit. Without me, you can’t do anything.” (John 15.1-5, CEB)

Often, the phrase “so that it will produce even more fruit” is highlighted as the indicator that someone or some organization is flourishing. But what Jesus is saying here is this: in God’s economy, flourishing usually doesn’t mean “doing more.”

Instead, flourishing means reorienting our eyes, our hearts, our focus, our connection, to the Source of our life and breath, without whom we can’t do anything: Jesus. It means learning how to remain in Jesus so that we can thrive and keep bearing fruit, even in seasons of drought.

What is that fruit? It isn’t more customers, more profit, or more worldly success. The fruit that John 15 talks about can be found in Galatians 5.22: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”

It can also be the clarity of calling, hope, capacity to do inner work, and connection with others that our research found were hallmarks of flourishing leaders. Flourishing means being abundant in the qualities and character of people who were made in the image of God, which is who and what we are. Therefore, flourishing means being our truest selves and who God truly created us to be. Flourishing is about who we are.

Flourishing means being abundant in the qualities and character of people who were made in the image of God, which is who and what we are.

It doesn’t matter how successful you or your organization are—if you haven’t discovered this deeper understanding of flourishing, not only are you missing out on true flourishing, you also might be leaving an impact on this world that you may regret.

Practical Tips for Flourishing

The painful seasons are often painful because we’re navigating something that is new, perhaps even completely foreign to us. These seasons of transition, often known as liminal spaces, mean that the only certain thing is uncertainty.

Below are some tips adapted from a Brene Brown podcast episode on navigating the liminal space that comes with encountering things for the first time.

1. Name and normalize your experience
   First, it’s helpful to name what you’re experiencing and identify the accompanying emotions paired with it. It can be even more helpful to recognize the truth that you’re probably not the first person to go through this, or at least something like it.
   So find people who have gone through something similar and ask them about their experiences. They can make the terror of your uncertainty a little less terrifying by making it a little less uncertain.

   Find safe people to talk about what is happening so that you don’t feel so alone in it. Mentors, therapists, pastors, and spiritual directors are all helpful in creating a network of supportive people who have experience walking with people in similar circumstances.

2.  Put things in perspective
   It’s instinctive and easy to catastrophize when things get rough. In fact, some of you probably get paid very well to imagine all the possible worst-case scenarios and strategize ways out of them. This can be fantastic for your organization, but terrible for your personal mental health.

   Rather than ruminating on all the potential negative outcomes, it can be more helpful to get grounded in truth. Instead of only looking at the negative possibilities, what are your actualities? What do you know to be true? What spiritual practices will sustain you and remind you of those truths in this desert season? What habits will keep you connected to and remaining in the presence of Jesus?

3. Reality check your expectations
   Flourishing in desert seasons looks and feels very different than flourishing in the easy seasons. Practices that may have worked for you in the past may require focus and energy that you may not have in a turbulent season.

   Your mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual life may all be thrown into disarray. This is to be expected. So, lower your expectations around how “well” your situation is going, how “well” you (and others) are going to handle it, and know that you’re going to be ok.

Cut yourself some slack, hang on for the ride, and look for Jesus. Sometimes it will feel like he’s not there, but he is! He promises, despite all appearances, to never leave or forsake us:

“Your way of life should be free from the love of money, and you should be content with what you have. After all, he has said, I will never leave you or abandon you. This is why we can confidently say,

The Lord is my helper,
and I won’t be afraid.
What can people do to me?” (Hebrews 13.5-6, CEB)

This wasteland won’t last forever. The only guarantee in life is that everything changes. Well, except for the God who never stops loving you. And that never-changing God will walk with you through every change you must face.

You may not like the desert seasons—most people don’t! But you can come out the other side stronger, wiser, and more resilient. The more often you’re willing to do the work to walk through the fire instead of run from it, the more you’ll begin to find yourself flourishing in the flames.