When Faith Meets Grit

By Jason Shanks – President, OSV Institute for Catholic Innovation

When is the last time you climbed a tree?  For me, I was probably a kid.  As a kid, why did we climb them? We climbed them to go up, to see from a height that would give us a new perspective, to feel the breeze, hide in the branches, and perhaps to pick fruit. We were curious, and frankly, why not?

In Luke 19: 1-10, we hear the story of a grown man climbing a sycamore-fig tree in Jericho. He was a wealthy tax collector named Zacchaeus.  Zacchaeus was “small of stature,” and he must have heard about Jesus and was curious. Perhaps for him he had heard about Jesus, about his miracles (i.e. the blind beggar in Luke 18) and about his mercy. Perhaps he was prevented access to Jesus because of his tax collector profession (a betrayal to Jews). If there was a crowd pressing in on Jesus in Jericho, they were not going to let Zacchaeus through and he was unable to view Jesus from the sidelines given his size.  But he was not going to be deterred, he wanted to gaze upon Christ, and so, he climbed the tree. 

What grit!

And grit, paid off for Zacchaeus, with an encounter with Christ who invited himself over to Zacchaeus’ house.  “And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, ‘Zacchaeus, make haste and come down; for I must stay at your house today.’” (v. 5) The call to this man was not just ‘come down,’ but rather ‘make haste!’ And what was the response?  “So, he made haste and came down, and received him joyfully.” And, that encounter led to the conversion of Zacchaeus.

Faith, Grit, invitation, haste, encounter, conversion.

Do you want to gaze upon Jesus?  Are you being prevented in some way? What is holding you back?  Or perhaps, you need to see Jesus from a new perspective?  What is the tree you need to climb? 

For the innovator, grit is not just in the tenacity to bring an idea forward, grit is key to your own personal conversion, in the daily grind, to seek, find, and gaze upon Christ, to respond to His invitation, and to conform your heart and will to his.  Grit is tied to faith and is the building blocks of a new world view that transforms us and transforms our work.  Let Zacchaeus be the model and example of the spiritual grit we all need.

Here are five considerations to infuse grit into your own spiritual life: 

1. At confirmation we are given the gift of fortitude, tap into it. You already have the strength, ask the Holy Spirit to manifest it.
2. Challenge yourself. Practice Grit by getting outside of yourself. Find new opportunities to express your faith in outreach to others.
3. We are embodied souls. We can learn grit through fasting and mortification. We can learn grit by setting goals in physical exercise or athletics. We come then to apply the grit learned in one area to the spiritual life.
4. Admit failure. It didn’t not take long during Christ’s visit for Zacchaeus to offer to make amends. Grit is not stubbornness. Let’s not confuse grit with sticking with something even if going the wrong way. Grit is an unabashed drive towards holiness and truth, and it might meal lots of turns on our way to get there.
5. Understand prudence. To balance the idea of sticking to things at all cost, the boldness in action, the humility to change course, one needs to cultivate the virtue of prudence. 

Jason Shanks brings a wealth of background and experience to his role as President of OSV Institute, launching initiatives to ignite creativity and entrepreneurship in the Catholic Church. His vision for renewal through innovation is unparalleled and stems from his conviction that the Church is evergreen from generation to generation and must be re-presented fresh and anew to today’s modern world.