How necessary is courage? And how do we get it? These questions came to the fore for me when I read the book "The Screwtape Letters" by C. S. Lewis. He writes that: “Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality. A chastity or honesty or mercy which yields to danger will be chaste or honest or merciful only on conditions. Pilate was merciful till it became risky.”
I like to think of myself as a kind and generous person, but when faced with my fears I often fall short of these ideals for myself. Courage then is entirely necessary for our pursuit of the life that Christ desires for us. What does this kind of courage look like?
I remember reading the book “The Five Second Rule” by Mel Robbins. It is a book all about this Rule (acting upon an idea within five seconds to avoid procrastination), but also about everyday courage. When we think about courage we often think of grandiose gestures. We think of soldiers going off into battle. We think of knights slaying dragons. All of these are indeed expressions of courage. But they make us feel that courage happens “out there,” it is something that is not often required by ordinary people.
Robbins stresses that the need for courage is actually all around us. It takes courage to admit that we need help. It takes courage to go for the job that we want. It takes courage to walk across the room and talk to a stranger. This is everyday courage. When we remove these examples from our discussion of courage, we rob ourselves of being courageous.
Where does courage come from? When we combine C. S. Lewis’ teaching on courage with Robbins’ idea of everyday courage, we see that courage is integral for following Christ. We cannot truly be kind without courage. We cannot truly be loving without courage. We cannot truly be merciful without courage. If courage is so important, then where do we get it?
We do not wait for courage to bubble up before we act courageously. Courage is a decision, spurred on by God’s Spirit inside of us. It is not the inability to feel fear, but rather, it is the ability to act despite fear. When I am faced with a decision, I have the choice to listen to my fears or to ignore them and act anyway.
Any discussion on courage must necessarily look at its relationship with wisdom. We have probably all heard the saying “they are either extremely brave or extremely stupid!” Courage needs to be tempered with wisdom. Not every act of bravery is right, neither is doing right purely about bravery. Rather we do right, and if necessary, we are brave. The bravery comes in the wake of the doing right, not vice-versa. Placing ourselves in stupid, dangerous situation for no reason is not true courage and it is important for us to know the difference.
Let us live lives of courage, inspired by the Spirit of God and looking to Him for the courage that we need to go throughout our daily lives, and the courage that we need to be true and authentic followers of Christ. May we be more courageous in our love, kindness, mercy and grace. Simon