Living Courageously

Living Courageously

If you’ve ever listened to an interview for a soldier awarded for courage under fire, you often hear a fact that seems contradictory to the citation: the soldier was afraid.

Most soldiers who have seen combat will admit this, but we’ve bought the myth that the soldier who fights courageously has no fear.

It’s not that they weren’t afraid, they’ll say. It’s that something was more important than their fear—love of country, pride in their cause, the lives of fellow soldiers. Their courage was essentially a value judgment that the things that matter are more important than letting fear run their lives.

Does fear run your life? It’s okay to be afraid. But you’ll never live above and beyond if you’re frozen in place or prone to retreat. If you don’t believe what matters is more important than what scares you, you’ll never put fear in its place and charge forward to take the next hill.

For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. —2 Timothy 1:7 NKJV