Thoughts on Courage

Sometimes when you're writing a book, it takes on a life all its own. You have an idea. You start writing. Several chapters later, a minor character suddenly appears as the perfect springboard for a vital lesson. For me, this lesson has become courage.

I never thought much about courage before. I'm not going to war. I don't face bullies on my way to work. For me, the epitome of courage is calling an insurance company, or medicare, or anyone that works for the government. Maybe I'm ridiculous and imagine extremes, but I prayed and prayed before going to all the offices in search of proper tags, licenses and titles last week. (For one, I know by experience that Texas has the rudest, coldest DMV people I've ever had the privilege of exchanging two words with.) I guess you could chalk it up to being a bit shy, but to me its a matter of courage.

Is real courage being George Washington? Stonewall Jackson? Caesar? Last night as I read Matthew Henry's commentary on the book of Judges, he mentioned the "little" judges Tola and Jair. He remarked that even the bravest of men are overlooked when history is peaceful. These two men were probably as great as Ehud, Gideon or Samson. They just didn't have the challenges Deborah or Jephthah faced. But the didn't make them any less courageous. Perhaps it made them more so.

So what is courage? The hero of my book is a young boy asking himself that very question. He knows his father is courageous, for the man has been thrown into prison for printing truth in his newspaper. His father's fellow prisoners are renowned for acts of bravery: spies, blockade runners, privateers. Young Jonathan is shy and quiet. Yet faced with adversity, he rises to the occasion, helps his mother and siblings at home, and even visits his father in prison. People call him brave. But how can he be brave if he doesn't feel so? All he is doing is his duty as the firstborn and "man of the house". Surely duty doesn't fall under courage.

Or maybe it does. Sometimes it takes great courage to do what is required of us. Gideon feared the Midianites, but God gave him a task to accomplish. Elijah sat under a juniper tree and asked to die, but God told him to get up and face his adversaries. Christ Himself begged to be delivered from the cup He must drink from, yet He prayed, "Not my will, but Thine be done."

In truth, perhaps the duties required of us take the greatest courage we can muster. They take the grace of God.