Courage and Faith

D.H. Lawrence once wrote, The greatest virtue in life is real courage that knows how to face facts and live beyond them. These words strike me as being full of wisdom. The great enemy of human faith and accomplishment is fear. It seems obvious to me that the most effective way to address such fear is by developing a sense of courage. Often, however, this is more easily said than done.

Last Sunday, Bryan Stanlow spoke of his tendency to worry about everything. He drew a big laugh when he mentioned “worrying about worrying too much.” I think the reason so many laughed was because everyone in the church service understood exactly what Bryan was talking about. We have all felt paralyzed by our worries and our fears. It is all too apparent to most of us that fear breeds worry, worry wastes time, and wasted time unravels future possibilities and opportunities. This state of affairs scares us even as it holds us back from moving with confidence into the future.

Courage, of course, does not necessarily mean that all fear and worry vanish from our lives. Rather, courage is most effective perhaps when it arises in the midst of our fears and bears witness to our lives transcending these traps of despair. Courage that is most valuable is that which lives through and beyond our worries and fears. It is that aspect of our existence that refuses to be held back, beaten down, or scared away.

Notice that Lawrence spoke of courage as facing facts. The truth is that many of our deepest fears grow out of the facts of life. Lack of resources, shaky relationships, precarious job situations, scary world events – all of these things are very real for many of us. They are not imaginary or “make believe,” rather they represent our reality. Whatever fears that we may experience in relation to these things most certainly are rooted in reality rather than illusion. Courage, however, describes our determination not to be held back by these fact-based fears. Courage bears witness to a deeper faith at work in our lives – faith that present situations can be transcended and perhaps even transformed into something better. This is what we usually mean by living through and beyond our fears.

Where does such faith have its source? Of course, as a Christian minister, I believe the source for faith is in the indwelling Spirit of God. For me, God represents the power of creative change and possibility constantly at work in all things and at all times. As a believer in this God, I have reason to live out of a strong sense of courage. No matter how desperate things may seem or how hopeless situations may appear, faith in a power greater than myself and greater than the world around me is enough to ignite sparks of courage.

As we draw near to Holy Week and Easter, I am struck by how much Jesus embodies this sort of courage. In the story of Jesus' death, we see him facing up to the facts of arrest, rejection and execution. Nowhere, however, does he seem to let fear and worry paralyze him. Rather, he moves through these events buoyed by a deep and profound faith in God. In the end, we see the story of Jesus moving through death to a new place of resurrection. To me, this is a serious picture of how faith engenders courage, courage defies fear as it moves forward, and the move forward realizes a new possibility for a transformed existence. This is the sort of faith I want in my life. This is the sort of courage I need as I strive to step into a brighter tomorrow. And, this is the sort of courageous faith that I pray will flow forth from your life, as well. Amen.