The Importance of Courage

Here’s something about courage that God gave me a while back. I was going over some old notes and came across this. I thought I’d share it with you…

Take a moment to think about what defines “hard” in your life and why is it hard?

“Hard” is usually defined as something that is “difficult to bear or endure.” It also means “demanding great exertion or effort; the opposite of all that is easy.” And the definition that I like the best, which falls under difficult is “the presence of obstacles to be surmounted or puzzles to be resolved and suggests the need of skill, patience, or courage.”

After God asked me the question “What is hard in your life and why is it hard?” These were the 2 answers I could only give…

A). I don’t have all the things I need to accomplish the task at hand.

Or

B). I do have what I need, but I don’t have the courage enough to put what I have to proper use, and eventually accomplishing the task at hand.

Consider an army. In any given battle, the soldiers can have all the equipment and weaponry they could possibly need to win a battle, but they can yet lack one ingredient to win that battle. That ingredient is “Courage.”

On the other hand, the soldiers can lack the proper equipment and weaponry they may need to win the battle, but they flourish in courage, which overall allows them to accomplish greater. All of this brings me to the point I believe He was trying to make, which is that I can accomplish a whole lot more with courage than without it. I may not have everything I need right now and I may not be where I need to be in God right now, but with courage to fight, I can get a whole lot closer to that place. Do you realize that there are tons of people in this world who can accomplish some ground-breaking things…have the brain power and maybe even the tools to make it happen, but lack in the courage to actually make it happen? So…this year, one of my resolutions is to be courageous in the things that present themselves as “difficult to bear or endure,” or has the “presence of being an obstacle that has to be surmounted, or a puzzle that has to be resolved, and suggests the need of skill, patience, or courage.” Some puzzles, once you dump all those pieces out the box, seem impossible to put together, but once you start working on it, and putting each piece together one by one, you begin to see that thing taking its shape. That’s what courage does. It gives shape and form to something that was once without it.

Here’s a definition of courage:
“Mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty”
“Implies firmness of mind and will in the face of danger or extreme difficulty”
“Firm determination to achieve one’s end” – resolution
And I like this one… “Stubborn persistence and unwillingness to admit defeat”
***That means to be stubborn (or immovable) and unwilling to acknowledge that your circumstances overwhelm you. Don’t ever let up. Or better yet, as I have heard Pastor Donnie McClurkin say before, “Don’t let the devil see your tears.”
Remember what Paul said, “We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed…”

Finally, my brothers and sisters...BE OF GOOD COURAGE!!!

Question:
Have you ever wondered why in the scriptures it always mentions to “be of good courage?” rather than just be of courage???