Most of us admire courage. We just hope we won’t need it now because the day has already brought us a sick child, dishes in the sink, and a past-due mortgage.
And let’s face it, isn’t courage for the glamorous? For those in military uniforms or behind a podium championing a cause? Maybe courage belongs to first responders running on adrenalin while you couldn’t find a drop of adrenalin if it sat in that dirty glass on the kitchen counter.
And when it comes to the Bible, courage is for those way-back Bible heroes like Esther approaching the king or David facing Goliath. Or Abigail facing a horde of David’s mighty and very angry and hungry men.
Your days and my days are not like that. At all.
The ordinary days of your life and mine outnumber the courageous days ten to one.
That is until …
A difficult conversation waits on the calendar. A diagnosis changes plans. A relationship reaches a crossroads. A door opens and another closes.
And the thing is, life always asks for a response and fear is usually the first reponder. And when fear is the first thing to show up, it can sink its claws into your heart to hang around a while.
Too often, courage is an afterthought that comes along weeks later when you realize, finally, courage was supposed to be your first step forward.
Fear Progression is Real
When we receive hard news, confusion sets in first. Then anger isn’t far behind. And uncertainty can linger for months.
Under those circumstances, organizing a courageous thought feels difficult and taking courageous action feels nearly impossible because … we see ourselves as survivors, maybe, but not heroes.
But here’s the interesting thing: Scripture never treats courage as a personality trait reserved for a few remarkable people. God speaks of courage as though it should be expected. From all of us.
And then there’s the fact that God tends to take the most unlikely people and ask them to exercise great feats of courage through prayer, faith, and action.
So here’s the question I asked myself: Why would God repeatedly tell ordinary men and women not to fear unless courage was possible for ordinary men and women?
Recovering Our Courage
Scripture reveals something fascinating in the opening chapters of Genesis. Most of us can name Adam and Eve’s sin but far fewer of us notice the first emerging fear symptom.
Let’s back up and look at Eden before sin entered the story, In the Garden, Adam and Eve lived in perfect fellowship with God. Transparency flourished, there was no hiding or shame. And fear did not exist.
But the peace of Eden would not go unchallenged. From out beyond the Garden entered a voice … a question that slithered into the garden.
Cleverly, the serpent asked Eve about the fruit God had commanded she and Adam not to eat. He asked, “Did God really say?”
The serpent was not asking for information. The serpent was planting suspicion.
It’s been my observation that the moment trust is questioned, the human mind goes to work. Trust allows us to rest in what God has said but fear immediately begins gathering evidence. Once trust of God came into question, Eve started looking at the forbidden tree differently. A fruit she had passed countless times suddenly became appealing. The boundary God had established now needed to be evaluated.
And you know the rest of the story. Eve ate and offered Adam the fruit. Scripture records Adam as having no response to Eve’s offering, and then he joined her in the afternoon iniquities.
Beyond interestingly, however, are Adam’s first recorded words after sin entered the picture:
“I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid…” (Genesis 3:10 NASB)
Afraid.
After their disobedience, Adam and Eve’s eyes were opened, and they felt exposed in their nakedness, covering themselves. When the Lord God came to walk with them in the cool of the day, they hid.
Think about that. They hid. Why do people hide?
Fear.
When God called out “Where are you?” Adam said, “… I was afraid.”
Fear had entered the human race, and we’ve wrestled with fear ever since.
But Courage Belongs to You
Courage asks us to trust God’s sovereignty again … to recover our God-given courage.
Throughout Scripture, God repeatedly invites His people back to the very thing that was lost in the garden.
Trust Me—the Maker of Heaven and Earth, the One who created you.
A few inspirational examples of this God-sized are: Abraham, who trusted and left home. Joshua, who trusted and crossed the Jordan. Esther, who trusted and approached the king. And, Abigail, who trusted and faced danger.
Page after page, Scripture tells the story of ordinary men and women facing circumstances larger than themselves.
And beneath every story lies the same invitation.
Will you trust God?
Trust Connects to Courage
For the Bible heroes we read about, courage came forth because trust grew greater than fear.
Courage is not something we can manufacture. Courage was woven into God’s original design for humanity from the beginning and now waits beneath the surface like seeds planted long ago.
So courage should not be a foreign concept. Amazing courage belongs to you as a Believer in Christ. Courage is your birthright.
In the Word, when God speaks of courage, there’s an expectation in His tone. When He commands us to be courageous, He is calling forth something He’s already given us. As beings made in His image and redeemed by Christ, courage is a part of our identity.
Recovering the Original Blue Print
Scripture describes Believers as a new creations. Christ did not only forgive our sins. At the cross, Christ began restoring what sin damaged.
We’re moving back to who we were originally made to be and I love that thought. I’m not currently all God has planned for me to be or who He planned me to be. Thank goodness because I’m a long way for mirroring a perfect Christ to the world around me.
But Paul writes:
Therefore if anyone is in Christ, this person is a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. – Corinthians 5:17 (NASB)
Renewal is not merely learning new information. Renewal is God’s ongoing work of restoring what fear stole. Paul tells us that day by day, we’re being renewed and that renewal includes courage:
Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer person is decaying, yet our inner person is being renewed day by day. – 2 Corinthians 4:16 (NASB)
Courage is the family resemblance of a people who belong to God.
The same God who called Abraham from home, Joshua across the Jordan, Esther into the king’s court, and Abigail into danger remains present in your ordinary Tuesday morning.
A sink full of dishes doesn’t diminish your inheritance as a daughter of God.
Courage belongs to you, and because it does, today doesn’t have to be governed by the fears that ruled yesterday. The phone call can be made. The conversation can be had. The diagnosis doesn’t have to become the loudest voice in the room. News that once would have knocked you flat can be met with a steady confidence that God has not abandoned His throne or His plans for your life.
James wrote, “Consider it all joy…” not because trials are pleasant but because God remains present within them.
Courage was never reserved for battlefields, palaces, or Bible heroes. Courage belongs wherever God’s people choose to trust Him.
And usually, that place begins at the kitchen sink.
If I perish, I perish,
Laurie
