Antifragile, Courageous Faith
“We don’t just want to survive uncertainty and risk, to just make it, but we want to dominate, conquer the unseen, thrive in the chaos with joy for His glory.”
Antifragility is one of Nassim Taleb’s best books. Here, the creative lens through which he sees the world is on full display. He sees in the mundane: crystal. He sees in the average, something startling. He sees the world through a lens that puts thing in right perspective, but in a way only a brilliant and well-trained, well-read mind can do.
I am increasingly concerned by the focus on trauma in member care without an equivalent focus not just on resilience, but endurance and the something beyond resilience: antifragility. People will rise to the occasion when we cast a vision they can rise to. If we only focus on the pain, they increasingly slide towards victimhood.
The Gospel will not be advanced without courageous people standing in the gap for long periods of time between evil and injustice, between the ongoing war between Pharoah and God that has continued for thousands of years to this day: Who is God?
This is my attempt to apply antifragility to faith and application related to Gospel advancement.
We can benefit from shocks, thrive, and grow when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder, and stressors, and love adventure, risk, and uncertainty. We want to know how to walk with faith in the unknown, do things and do them well.
We need a faith that works, that can stand up to this kind of darkness. But how do we know when we have enough faith, and the right kind of faith, courageous faith? Faith can be described in three levels.
Fragile Faith
Fragile faith that falls apart when adversity happens; Has more to lose than gain. “I believe in God’ but when it encounters difficulty, this faith is crushed. Certain about too many things of God. When they see the cost of faith, they have too much to lose and not enough gain to follow Christ. The price of the call is too high. Lollipop spirituality – there is no substance to it.
This type of faith wants to be left in peace, quiet, order, predictability, does not like volatility, randomness, uncertainty, disorder, errors, stressors.
Resilient Faith
When we encounter an obstacle, we endure through it and bounce back like a rubber band. We can keep going despite suffering and trauma. The problem with resiliency is that it suffers from random events, instead of using the shocks to grow. But I think this is a problem in the church and in member care, is it keeps saying “we need to help people be more resilient” and that’s good, but not good enough; it sets the goal too low; it is not challenging people to not just become resilient, but to thrive and grow even deeper in intimacy with Christ in the midst of withstanding persecution and to know how to do that,
No, We are called to a greater faith.
Antifragile Courageous Faith
Antifragile faith is beyond resilient faith. It is a faith says no matter the trial thrown at us, this faith has more to gain in Christ than lose. It grows from disorder and chaos. Not broken or crushed in adversity; it does not merely endure, but when this faith encounters an obstacle, anti-fragile faith becomes something more than it was before; stronger, tougher, more powerful, purified, increased fruit of the spirit.
This is a faith says that no matter what the shadows of evil throw at me I will withstand, even if like Job the Lord takes everything away, I will follow him. I am not in this for victory, the success, or the fame.
I am not in this for the numbers; I am in this to obey my Lord; to serve him because I love him and He loves me; because he calls me, and because he is worthy.
Antifragile faith results in PTSG & PTSJ (Post Traumatic Stress Growth and Post Traumatic Stress Joy).