Life comes with many harsh realities. And it’s easy to grow discouraged, lose hope, and simply settle for the easy and comfortable aspects of life. It takes much inner fortitude to endure fighting the good fight and bringing more life and goodness into the world.
Of course, harsh physical realities require physical fortitude to endure. And pursuing the good in our life and relationships require us to develop our inner fortitude as well.
This virtue of fortitude is our ability to keep doing the next right thing even when faced with many difficulties.
For instance, we must keep a cool head when we’re blamed for every relational hardship. While taking responsibility for and quickly seeking to correct those things that are ours to own, we don’t let false blame distract us from our duty to love. Even when others assume the worst, we love anyway.
And when it’s tempting to settle into an easy and mediocre job, we dig deeper to keep producing the work that matters – faithfully fulfilling God’s call for our life.
Likewise, when the world tries to seduce us away from God, we resist and remain committed to his standards even when this makes us look odd and outdated.
Without this inner fortitude to keep going and fighting for life regardless of the thorns and thistles we might face, we simply drift through life without the backbone needed to make an impact for good.
To be sure, fortitude is not merely being hardheaded, inflexible, or unwilling to consider a better way forward. But it’s not simply giving up and caving in when faced with challenging obstacles either. It’s a willingness to remain focused on the good and pay whatever cost necessary to bring this goodness into reality.
Stand firm. No matter how dark things may seem, there’s still good worth fighting for and your inner fortitude is needed.
Photo by Nilantha Sanjeewa on Unsplash
