Dear Parents and Carers,
Amidst the various schools I have led, parents have often told me they want their child to become resilient. They have also said they don’t want their child to navigate anything difficult. These two aims are incompatible. The world will inevitably present us with difficulties. I have come to the view that over-protection ultimately leads to over-exposure, that is, hiding away from reality in a bubble or enclave prevents the development of necessary skills to cope with adult life.
Suffering produces resilience?
What might be a biblical position on these issues? Paul writes tellingly that “we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us” (Romans 5:3-5). Note the drift of Paul’s argument: perseverance, or we may say the beginning of resilience, actually comes from suffering; out of perseverance comes character, and out of character comes hope. The unpalatable truth is that the Lord uses suffering to shape us and to particularly form our character. This makes sense. Why would we change if everything is constantly wonderful? The Lord shapes godly character out of the crucible of challenge.
Covenant – an instrument of hope
The finale of Paul’s argument is very important; in my opinion it is very important in a Christian school, which must be an instrument of hope. Staff in Christian schools must be merchants of hope, harbingers of hope. As young people consider the world from their limited experience, what do they see? Endless wars, the slaughter of the innocent, famine, poverty, discrimination, and they perceive global warming through climate change which has the potential to eclipse life on planet Earth. They see nuclear powers with the hardware to end all human life. They see and experience a tsunami of mental health issues across the Western world. They see a society which is disintegrating, increasingly polarised, descending into echo chambers driven by social media algorithms, the collapse of civility and a lack of common ethics, identity, meaning and purpose. The idea behind the commonwealth which serves everybody is breaking into a fewer number of ‘haves’ and into a growing number of ‘have nots’. Democracies, buffeted by tidal forces, seem increasingly incapable of resolving difficult issues. As political parties present real solutions, they are likely to develop winners and losers and hence lose government.
Our reason to push through suffering
Hope is a portal for the Christian gospel. It is an entry point. Hope in the New Testament is not vague, wishful thinking but certainty as revealed by God. “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1). Faith and hope are intricately linked. Amidst a world which seems to be in chaos, hope is found in Christ. This certainly leads to resilience as we have a reason to push on through the suffering life inevitably brings. It is my hope that all Covenant students will find meaning, purpose and identity in Christ.
Dr John Collier
Interim Principal
