(pursue your dreams, do something you’ve always wanted to do, ask for help, risk, express your feelings – fill in the blank)… but it will require you to be courageous, to be honest with yourself, and to stand for… Are you? If not, do you know why you aren’t? Actually… do you know what ‘being brave’ is? Do you know how to be brave? In the world in which we live, it is critical to be equipped and ‘armed’. To paraphrase… living is not for the faint hearted. You have to be bold, know who you are, and trust in Whose you are. And this is the beginning, but without this mindset you become defeated just as you start.
Daily we are bombarded by temptations, challenges, opportunities, etc. that we respond to by accepting, rejecting, ignoring. The ‘overload’ can become exceedingly overwhelming unless we take proactive actions, and I think it begins with a clear understanding of what the Lord’s called us to in this day and also what’s important to us, etc. And most of the time we need the courage of our convictions to rise, rule and continue our journey.
What about our courage to Stand? Do we… Stand? I alluded to this in the previous paragraph, but it truly is important that we know How to stand. Courage is typically built on what we know, what we’ve experienced but also a feeling, a sense of appropriating what’s been provided for us. In Ephesians 6 we are presented with the Lord’s armor and told to put this on. Interesting that verse 10 begins with the words – in conclusion. This is a restatement, a summing of what Paul was teaching:
“In conclusion, be strong in the Lord [draw your strength from Him and be empowered through your union with Him] and in the power of His [boundless] might.”
We’re not doing our standing from our strength but from the Lord’s. We’re not in this alone, nor are we expected to do what I call ‘stiff upper lip it’. That’s more bravado than reality. Verses 10-17 go on to describe the pieces of the armor and what their role is and ends with:
“Above all, lift up the [protective] shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one, And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God.”
Shield, helmet, and sword… this is the culmination: faith, salvation, Word. With these we CAN have the courage to do what’s required, what’s on our hearts, what’s needed because of what’s available. Never forget that no weapon formed against us will ever prosper (Isaiah 54:17). Before we ever stand, before we ever take that first step, courage should rise up in us because we know Whose we are and, if it is of the Lord… we will stand and act as conquerors (Romans 8:37).
What if it’s not of the Lord? We can still turn to Him, repenting and seeking a way through (Hebrews 4:15, Isaiah 43:19) the mess that’s been created. That too takes courage…
