Thursday 26 March 2025

When I began to contemplate the year ahead, it was immediately apparent the LEQ team had a mountain of projects and goals to deliver in 2025. The LEQ team is not unique; each of our Schools and Services will start a year with the same thoughts in their head. So, what does it take to forge forward regardless? The answer for us this year lies in the concepts of grit and joy. 

What is this thing called ‘grit’? 

Angela Duckworth defines ‘grit’ as ‘passion and sustained persistence applied toward long-term achievement, with no particular concern for rewards or recognition along the way. It combines resilience, ambition, and self-control in the pursuit of goals that take months, years, or even decades’. 

If this does not typify the education industry, then I don’t know what does. Those of us who serve in Early Years and Schools know that ‘grit’ is part of the DNA of our staff and what we try to impart to the young people in our care.  

Duckworth believes grit isn’t just something you’re born with, but something that can be cultivated and developed. She details four psychological assets that ‘gritty’ individuals tend to have: 

  • A deep sense of purpose 
  • Interest in their pursuits 
  • The capacity to practice with the intent of continuous improvement 
  • Their hope that they can overcome challenges 

All of these represent the thinking and actions that happen everyday in our Lutheran Schools and Early Years Services. 

2025 has started with many challenges, not least a major weather event called TC Alfred. Some of our Services have been flooded multiple times in recent months, with many others across south-east Queensland experiencing a week of uncertainty, storm damage, and power outages. Prayers for the grit shown by our Lutheran Church and St Paul’s ELC in Townsville, and in challenges for things yet unnamed or for which your School or Service is seeking to work through and support. 

Max Anders reminds us, while the word ‘grit’ does not appear in the Bible, its synonyms do: 

  • Endurance: “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (James 1:2–4). 
  • Steadfastness: “Be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 15:58). 
  • Discipline: “I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified” (1 Corinthians 9:27). 
  • Faithfulness: “Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life” (Revelation 2:10). 

Many of you know my own personal Bible verse comes from Joshua 1:9: “Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” 

When challenges are many, progress slower than you anticipate and doubts begin to crowd in, God asks us to lean into ‘grit’ for the mission of his church and those we educate. 

 

That brings me to joy. Whilst we are asked to persevere by God, he also encourages us. 

What is the definition of real joy, and where does it come from? 

Simply put, Biblical joy is choosing to respond to external circumstances with inner contentment and satisfaction, because we know that God will use these experiences to accomplish His work in and through our lives. 

Let’s look at James 1:2-3 3: “My brethren, count it all joy, when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience” (NKJV). James tells his readers that, even in times of trial and suffering, we can each choose to respond with joy. Joy is a choice! But it does come from the Lord — we don’t have to produce it or drum it up on our own. 

During my own time serving as a Lutheran School principal, I adopted an approach to, every day, identify a moment of joy and thank God for it. (I have to say it was an easy goal to achieve because of the great innate joy I found in serving the school community! I found joy in student, staff and parent encounters, celebratory events, and in sweet classroom moments when a student asks a discerning question, succeeds after perseverance, or speaks kindly and encouragingly to a peer.) 

The concepts of ‘grit’ and ‘joy’ are both outpourings of grace and hope. No matter the challenges and joy we all face this year in our mission of educating young people and inspiring learning for life, may we return again and again to God’s hope. 

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:13). 

 

Tanya Crooks
Executive Director
Lutheran Education Queensland