COURAGE; An Underrated Virtue

Judges 6:14 "Then the Lord turned to him and said, "Go with the strength that you have, and rescue Israel from the Midianites. I am sending you!"

We hear a lot about patience, love, honesty and all the virtues that make us better people. But one virtue that gets lost in the multitude of must-bes that we so often get bombarded with, is Courage; that ability to do something that frightens you. It is a big part of the “adulting” phase because let’s face it; we hardly know what we’re doing at any turn.

The daily struggles we have are often laced with some form of performance anxiety which goes beyond just standing before crowds; we fear performing badly at work or coming off as not knowing what we’re about and even taking up more responsibility because more would be demanded of us, including answering for ourselves and for the actions of others; with just our dreams in mind and visions on paper, we start companies and hope against   hope that our strategies bring us good fortune; we fear stepping into another romantic relationship because we’ve been hurt by one, maybe two people in the past; we become new parents and are constantly guessing if we are doing the right things for our babies: the learning curve never evens out and we are in a never-ending learning process. All these can truly be daunting.

To handle all of these curveballs, and to step into our own destinies, we need courage, a lot of it.  In Judges 6, we are introduced to Gideon; a man who is the lowliest of the lowly. He had no family name to rely on, and if people were being chosen, he would probably be last to be selected. But in verse 12, an angel appears to him and calls him “Mighty hero” and tells him the Lord was with him. Gideon of course expresses the same concerns that we sometimes have: “If God is with us, why are we not seeing top?” cos sometimes, it really does feel like that. 

But in verse 14, God empowers him with these words that should be comforting to us “Go with the strength that you have, and rescue Israel from the Midianites. I am sending you”. “Go with the strength that you have”; isn’t that great to hear? That the strength that Gideon had was enough for him to actually cause a change. That though if it were up to man he would be the least to be enlisted in the army, his strength was already enough to lead the army into victory. He goes through that phase of doubt when he asks for confirmation that what was said to him was really true. After he received the first confirmation, he needed one more, so he asks for another, and then hits God with the “okay last one”; a third confirmation. This is the picture of a man who needed the courage to step into a defining moment for his nation. He needed to know that this would work, but how would he know? He’s been told to go in his strength; the strength he never thought much of. 

Many of us are in Gideon’s shoes. We have a lot of questions about all the things that do not seem right; we question the status quo. We wish something could be done about it; better yet, we wish we could do something about it… if only we got a little push, a little shove in the right direction. Here’s your little push; go in the strength that you have. God is with you. 

In the book of Esther, we find yet another statement of courage from Esther, a beautiful, young Jewish woman who has risen to be queen in another land but has her identity hidden for safety. When the lives of all Jewish people were threatened all across the land, she was faced with a difficult thing to do; go to the king uninvited and plead a case for a people she has hitherto not identified with. In verse 11 of Esther 4, we can tell of her fear and hesitation when she says “all the king’s officials and even the people in the provinces know that anyone who appears before the king in his inner court without being invited is doomed to die unless the king holds out his gold scepter. And the king has not called for me to come to him for thirty days”.  However, in verse 16, we see a much different response from her. She says “...And then, though it is against the law, I will go in to see the king. If I must die, I must die”. What is the difference between these two responses? 

I believe that the second response stemmed from her realizing that she was not alone; that all the Jews in the land were with her, and most importantly, that God was with her. Was she still scared? Certainly! She knew that there was a probability of death at the king’s whim, but she did it anyway.

What is the takeaway from these people? 

The biggest takeaway is that you will not always be one hundred percent prepared, qualified or even invited. Sometimes you would have to come up to the table and pull up a seat. Do it with your hands trembling, do it with some beads of sweat showing on your face; by all means, do it afraid. For it is doing things when you are afraid, that you will find in you the Courage you need to face your everyday mountains.

Your friends,

Becky and Sharon