From a young 15-year-old, a sister.
What is courage? Synonyms for courage include bravery, boldness, resoluteness, and pluck. Confidence is the root of courage. If you are confident in God's complete power, control, wisdom, and goodness, you'll definitely make courageous choices. You'll be bold and willing to take risks. Courage is abstract, but becomes tangible in our choices and actions. Opposites of courage are cowardice, timidity, hesitance, backing down, and turning back. You might be wondering why I didn't list fear. As someone has said, "Courage is not the absence of fear, but making the right choice in the face of fear."
Let me make this clear: The kind of courage I'm talking about is not SELF-confidence, but a deep down GOD-confidence and a wild abandonment to Him. I'm talking about a boldness that comes from believing God is great and choosing to trust Him no matter what. It's an inner strength from God in a heart madly in love with Him. This is Jesus' kind of courage—sometimes surprising, always admirable. Jesus knew who he was and where he was going. He knew his father was the King of the Universe. As one songwriter put it, He "lived and breathed for an audience of One."
Courage and self-confidence are two character qualities that seem identical, yet really are opposites. Suppose you meet someone who keeps her poise in a difficult circumstance. She is resilient in the face of failure. After making a choice, she is resolute. She sometimes makes decisions that seem rash to others. She speaks boldly when needed. She may defy authority or popular opinion. Is this person courageous or merely self-confident? The difference is at the heart. If we look closely, we can tell that the heart of courage is dependence and the heart of self-confidence is independence. Courage comes from being sure of God, but self-confidence comes from being self-sure. Courage denies self and rises above fear while self-confidence promotes self and scoffs at fear. Courage flows from loving Jesus; self-confidence flows from loving self. Courage knows, "I'm weak, but Jesus is strong and right." Self-confidence thinks, "I'm strong and right." To sum it up, courage boils down to trust; self-confidence boils down to pride. They may look the same at first glance, but courage and self-confidence are completely different qualities.
Throughout the book of Acts, there are incredible stories of Peter, John, Barnabas, Paul, and other believers saying things that only men with courage would dare to say. Peter and John were arrested and brought before the highest officials in the Jewish council. The officials demanded to know by whose power Peter and John had healed a crippled man. Peter answered so boldly that the leaders were astonished. They could see Peter and John were ordinary men, and then remembered they had been with Jesus. The apostles showed great courage in the way they spoke for Jesus. "Do you think God wants us to obey you rather than Him? We cannot stop telling about the wonderful things we have seen and heard." They didn't worry about what the powerful leaders thought or what those leaders would do. Peter and John spoke truth and were a wonderful testimony of Jesus. They spoke for Him again and again regardless of threats of imprisonment, torture, and death that were often carried out. Their lives are shining examples of the courage that causes men to say things they wouldn't otherwise say.
To care for soldiers, Clara Barton bravely went to Civil War battles. She was a nurse on the front line—an extremely dangerous job—and said her place was "anywhere between the bullet and the battlefield." She went to Antiem, one of the bloodiest fights of the war. While traveling with Union troops, she went without food and slept outside on the ground. Clara Barton wasn't even a Christian, yet she risked her life out of love for fellow humans. How much more should we, who have God's love in our hearts, take courage and go places we wouldn't otherwise go, in obedience to Him? Once, Barton held the operating table steady for a surgeon when shells started exploding nearby. (The surgeon later called her "the angel of the battlefield.") She didn't flee, but made the right choice in the face of fear.
Countless believers have refused to deny Jesus, and have even loved and prayed for their persecutors. Their stories are sweet with the fragrance of courage. Liuba Ganevskaya was imprisoned, beaten, and starved by Russian communists. God told her, "You and your torturers pass through the same vale of tears." Courageously, she smiled at a guard when he raised a whip to beat her. He was stunned, and asked why. She expressed such love and vision for him that he left, never the same. A communist officer told a Christian he was beating, "I am almighty as you suppose your God to be. I can kill you." The Christian bravely answered, "The power is all on my side. I can love you while you torture me to death." Tom White, an American "missionary," was arrested in Cuba after his plane crashed there. He was put in a pitch-black, cold room. Once, when he was being harshly interrogated, God gave him a measure of pity and compassion. He boldly stared directly into the captain's eyes and prayed for him for hours. "Break through, Jesus. He is the one in the cold, for he has never known the warmth of Your love." Instead of getting angry, the captain grew uncomfortable and his heart was touched. These stories are examples of the courage that is so precious to God.
In many ways, courage is like a tree growing in the heart. A tree must be planted deep in good soil. Likewise, courage must be firmly planted in the soil of faith. Also, a tree produces fruit. Courage grows fruit too—courageous actions. They are refreshing and sweet when tasted by others, with a delightful scent of Jesus. (Someone who hates Jesus won't like courage-fruit very much.) Furthermore, fruit on a tree doesn't decide to grow—it happens naturally. In the same way, someone who does something brave usually isn't thinking, "Ok, now I'm going to be brave." A brave choice comes spontaneously if courage is alive in someone's heart. Unfortunately, a tree can be killed by disease. Similarly, courage can be destroyed or never begin to grow if we allow the disease of self-life in our heart. But, in real choices every day, we can reject self-life. Those decisions protect and nurture courage like a tree protected from disease. Just as a tree needs and grows toward sunlight, we can look toward Son-light with the eyes of our heart and talk to Jesus, the shining, risen Person! Courage flourishes in a heart that's filled with His Light and friendship. Finally, a tree doesn't strive to grow. Likewise, we don't have to strive to be courageous if we are truly born from above. We must only provide the right environment. If courage is rooted in good soil, is protected from disease, and has plenty of light, it will become beautiful and strong, producing good fruit.
Courage can be a choice to deny your self, to go forward in spite of fear. That choice is essential for growing into all God wants you to be. A saying goes: "You cannot discover new oceans unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore." The choice of courage is a must for Jesus' followers. "Whenever you see a person who truly knows Jesus, a man or woman who experiences and imparts Resurrection Life to those around him or her—you have met someone who is the product of courageous decisions" (adapted from Peter Drucker). Courage causes you to go places you wouldn't otherwise go, say things you wouldn't want to say, and continue to give and love even when it hurts. God can use that kind of courage in His Kingdom.