How to Grow Grit Under Resistance: Challenge 2026

I’ve got a girl with grit. She bends with graceful control, pushes off with force, and lands with calculated precision. She’s a gymnast, and I’ve watched her grow over a decade of dance and now during this recent transition to the gym. 

When I think of grit, I picture her conquering fear on the balance beam and high bar. So much of the work is mental. The same skill she can do with ease on the floor feels foreign on a regulation-height balance beam. The shift from low to high bar makes the same dismount not the same.

My kid isn’t just developing gymnastic skills in the 20 hours a week she spends in practice. She’s learning to turn resistance into an asset.

When she walks around the house on her hands, her bodyweight builds muscle in her arms and core. When she sprints toward the vault, she minimizes air resistance by keeping her body tight. She fights friction on the bars by applying chalk to her hand grips. 

Similarly, in the flexibility skills, her internal muscles themselves create resistance. Gravity is at play in all of it, as is what is going on inside her head.

It all tells the same tale: It’s under resistance that a gymnast must learn to thrive. 

Asset or Kryptonite?

As I think of you, just a few short days into the #ResilientGratitude challenge, I wonder where you’re encountering resistance in your life. Maybe in your marriage, your ministry, your mobility. Perhaps in your job, your joy, your journey. 

Take a moment to name where you feel overwhelmed, overlooked, or unfairly treated. Then sit with this question: What would it mean if those very things were assets instead of kryptonite?

Imagine if setbacks could become sounding boards. What if the worst challenge you are facing at this moment didn’t derail you, but instead, strengthened your character and replenished your hope? If the fears and friction you encounter only grew you more quickly into who you are meant to be?

The Recipe for Getting Through

This morning my Bible reading plan took me to Psalm 56, a lament written by King David in the midst of one of his own extra-resilience-required seasons. David shares his tried-and-true recipe for getting through:

When struck by fear,

    I let go, depending securely upon You alone.

In God—whose word I praise—

    in God I place my trust. 

(vs. 3-4)

Note the word when. David doesn’t say “if fear strikes” but “when it comes.” He expects it. And he has a plan:

1. Let go.
2. Cling to Christ.

Letting go is a layered process. Since David emphasizes that he is “depending securely upon [God] alone,” we can surmise that any and everything else is rolled into the letting go.

He lets go of fear itself.

Unmet expectations.

Anxious thoughts.

Anger.

Sorrow.

Misused words.

Revenge.

Self-wrought justice.

With both hands free of these things, David turns the entirety of his trust towards God. He counsels his own soul to rely on the faithfulness of God. He activates his faith by praising God.

Right in the middle of so much wrong.

And it makes him strong–this confidence in Christ no matter the crushing circumstances.

What Resilience Looks Like

See where he ends the Psalm:

I am bound by Your promise, O God.

    My life is my offering of thanksgiving to You,

For You have saved my soul from the darkness of death,

    steadied my feet from stumbling

So I might continue to walk before God,

    embraced in the light of the living.”

(vs. 12-13)

This stirring picture of steady feet and a stream of praise doesn’t just depict David. It can also describe you and I.

It’s what resilience looks like. Not the absence of the pain, everything being right, right now, or self-supplied strength. It’s the deep assurance that comes from knowing we can trust God.

This is my sincere hope for you as we take the #ResilientGratitude challenge together. That with every thanksgiving you offer to God, your trust in Him will grow. That as you look around you, in ordinary and unlikely places, you’ll be overwhelmed with evidence of God’s faithfulness–and it will fuel your faith. That even if nothing changes in your circumstances, you’ll find the strength, joy, patience, protection, and wisdom you need in Jesus.

By the way, if you haven’t signed up yet for the challenge, it’s not too late to join! 

A Prayer for Grit as You Encounter Resistance

As you continue on through (or begin) the challenge, please know that I’m in your corner, praying for you.

I’m praying for a shift in how you view the resistance you’re facing, that it will become a tool to build trust instead of being your kryptonite. That as you bravely praise God for His faithfulness before He answers, intervenes, or redeems, you’ll find peace more persistent than the storm. 

I’m praying also for the people who will see the pictures you capture of God’s faithfulness, that God will capture their attention and reveal Himself through your gratitude. I’m praying that the seeds you plant through your thanksgiving will grow in God’s time and yield a God-sized harvest–in your life and in the lives of others you know.

I’m praying for grit to grow as you lean into gratitude. For fresh encounters with God as you search Him out. For your joy to double.

Just a friend over here in your corner,

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