Courage

Courage.

Strong. Strength. Faith.

Taking a leap. Jumping off. Its the backflip into the pool.

Its getting up early in the morning when it hurts. Taking a cold shower when the hot water is gone.

We are all courageous sometimes. We choose to bite our tongues and not say what is deserved.

Sometimes we open our mouths and say what is needed.

Maybe you have prayed for someone out loud.

Or trusted a friend to keep a secret. Or said sorry first.

Courage is doing what is more difficult. Eating a salad rather than the cheeseburger.

Or maybe for you its eating the cheeseburger rather than the water. Water cannot be eaten.

It allowing someone else to make decisions...and living with them.

Marriage is courageous. Getting a job is courageous.

Paying for someone's lunch is courageous.

So is sharing Jesus with another person.

So is dying for your faith.

So is putting faith in Jesus.

So is praying, even secretly, for your friends.

Peter and John had courage. It would have been easier to walk by the paralytic.

That was the accepted thing to do. That was the normal thing to do.

It would have been simpler to smile and nod to the Jewish religious authorities.

But they didn't.

They proclaimed that which was real. And tangible and lovely. They proclaimed Jesus.

Courage isn't as hard as we think it is.

We save this word for superheroes and firemen. We allow Dateline and the CBS Evening News to monopolize this word – we begin to believe that only people born with or thrust into extreme places of difficulty are worthy of being called courageous.
I don't mean to say that these people who do amazing things shouldn't be called courageous, but we should also recognize the fact that our selfishness and greed are the biggest deterrents for each of us.

It is our sin nature which keeps us from being heroic and bold and courageous.

We don't want to be uncomfortable, we don't want to be challenged, we are lazy and we don't want to reach our potential for fear of a new expectation being thrust upon us.

Tomorrow when you face your sin nature – and when you allow Jesus' re-making work to be more powerful within you – you are being courageous.

Who knows where that courage will lead.

Your ordinary life might not feel so ordinary anymore.