Courage

I've been thinking a lot about courage lately because I've been realizing more and more how much I lack it. The thing is, I didn't really want this..this courage.. desperately enough to ask for it before. I may have kind of wanted it in my head but I didn't want it with my being because of fear (again the fear) that I might have to do uncomfortable and scary things. It wasn't until I realized the disturbance and influence of fear in my life when I decided to truly ask for courage.

For example..

I feared conflict...so I avoided them.

I feared some stuff that happened in the past...so I lived a defensive, passive aggressive and sometimes angry life.

I feared making a fool of myself...so I never tried anything that might make me look like one.

I feared possible or potential hopeless situations...so I lived as though I was already defeated. 

So I started looking up definitions and quotes on courage and came across some that stirred my soul.

Courage is fear that has said its prayers.  ~Dorothy Bernard

Courage is almost a contradiction in terms.  It means a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die.  ~G.K. Chesterton

Courage is a peculiar kind of fear.  ~Charles Kennedy

Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.  ~C.S. Lewis

Courage is doing what you're afraid to do.  There can be no courage unless you're scared.  ~Edward Vernon Rickenbacker

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear.  ~Ambrose Redmoon

The first and the last ones are my favourite. I want to be able to say with my life.. "Yes I am sometimes scared to death to live a kind of life that You have called me to live but I am going to do it anyways because there is something more important and more powerful than the influence of fear. Jesus has overcome the world!  And I am His and He is mine." 

My God is Higher than any other.

Wednesday-Thursday, December 1-2, 2010 (from my journal)

Addressed to my brothers and sisters who will need to hear this... please listen to this. We are living in a world full of so much evil and injustice all around us. Yet, we as the church who are supposed to be full of power and authority sit with absolutely no care and no power. Why? Because we are way too comfortable.

Will you sit and do nothing? Until when? Until the comforts of your life are removed from you? Will you continue to allow evil to slowly seep into your life while being completely unaware of it and allowing it to blind you and take over your thoughts? And then what? Will you allow it to destroy you and destroy those around you? When will you wake up! When the hell will you wake up! Literally! You sit and allow the evil to take over not only your thoughts but also your mind… slowly but surely it will turn from thoughts to habits and behaviors and from habits and behaviors to character. Will you allow fear to overcome you? For how long? Until it paralyzes you to death!

I am saying this because I am so embarrassed to see how much darkness I have been living in without even realizing it! The things that seemed so harmless and ridiculous grew and grew into dangerous habits bringing about dangerous ways of doing life which was bringing me down a dangerous path of destruction of myself and those I claim to love. How could I? How could I have even dare to go about living comfortably mixed in with the things that are not of God. How dare I!

For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline. 2 Timothy 1:7

But I was living in fear, worry, hate, jealousy, anger, paranoia, depression, sexual immorality, greed, grumbling, and arrogance. Oh what dark places I have been living in without realizing the grip of the enemy in my life. Oh and the fear that paralyzed me from being able to do anything.

But how could I think that anything is greater than or too big for God?

My God...

My God turned water into wine.

My God brought sight to the blind.

My God freed His people from slavery.

My God used messed up people to do mighty things.

My God changed the timid into the courageous.

Into the darkness You shine! Out of the ashes we rise! WOW!!!! Incredible!

My God healed the royal official’s son when He told the royal official “Go your son will live”. (John4:46-54)

My God healed a demon-possessed man in Capernaum. (Mark 1:21-28; Luke 4:33-37).

My God healed Peter’s mother-in-law of a high fever. (Matthew 8:14-15; Mark 1:29-31; Luke 4:38-39).

My God caught a LARGE number of fish. During this time Jesus told Simon, “Do not be afraid, from now on you will be fishing for the souls of men.” (Luke 5:3-10)

My God healed a leper. (Matthew 8:1-3; Mark 1:40-42).

My God healed a centurion’s servant who was close to death. Jesus was amazed by the Centurions faith that his servant would be healed only if Jesus spoke the word, and Jesus was amazed by such faith. (Matthew 8:5-13; Luke 7:1-10).

My God forgave the sins of a paralytic man. (Matthew 9:1-8; Mark 2:1-12; Luke 5:18-26)

My God brought walking to the paralyzed. (Matthew 9:1-8; Mark 2:1-12; Luke 5:18-26) and people who witnessed were all amazed and glorified my God saying, “We have never seen anything like this”.

My God healed a withered hand and answered the Pharisees with a question, “I ask you, is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to destroy it?” (Matthew 12:9-14; Mark 3:1-6) In other words, my God is bigger than the laws and rules in place, superstitions, misconstrued ideas and beliefs.

My God raised a widow’s son from the dead. (Luke 7:11-17)

My God calmed the stormy sea and told the wind and the sea to be still. (Matthew 8:23-27; Mark 4:35-41; Luke 8:22-25).

My God healed a Gerasene man full of demons. (Matthew 8:28-32; Mark 5:1-13; Luke 8:26-33).

My God healed a woman with internal bleeding (hemorrhages for twelve years) that was getting worse when she touched His clothes. (Matthew 9:20-22; Mark 5:25-34; Luke 8:43-48)

My God healed Jairus’ daughter who was near death or who had died. He said that she was sleeping and he called out and said, “Child get up”.  (Matthew 9:18-19, 23-25; mark 5:22-24; 35-43; Luke 8:41-42; 29-56)

Child get up! My Child get up! And live victoriously in Him who is victorious! Amen.

My God brought sight to the blind. (Matthew 9:27-31)

My God healed a mute demoniac (someone influenced/possessed by the demon) and the mute spoke once Jesus cast out the demon. (Matthew 9:32-33)

My God healed a 38 year invalid and he said, “My Father is still working, and I also am working.” (John 5:5-17)

My God fed 5000 men and their families. (Matthew 14:16-21; Mark 6:35-44; Luke 9:12-17; John 6:5-14).

…to be cont’d...

Basically my God is higher than any other. There is no higher authority than my God. My God is GOD. No one can deny.

May my life reflect this truth in every single way. May no fiber in my being deny this truth. May I live in the fullness of what it means to proclaim you as LORD. May gratitude fill my soul for Your abounding love and grace. May courage be my second name. Why? Because I am Yours and You are for me and You are with me.. so what could stand against. Ha!

God, help me to grow into this name.. COURAGE!

My child get up! Get up and live victoriously in Him who is victorious!

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear. -Mark Twain