If you want to be Courageous, you’ve got to be Scared. After all, it’s easy to be courageous when you’ve got nothing to be courageous about.

When my wife told me she was expecting our son, I was Scared. Although saved much younger, by the age of 29 I had perfected the art of “nominal Christianity” and made life all about yours truly, bless my heart. Now I was faced with the reality that I might actually be responsible for another human soul. My immediate thought was, “time to get serious about my Faith.”

Turns out, my reaction was much like Samson’s father in the Old Testament when he found out he was going to be a Daddy. Judges 13:8 says:

“Then Manoah prayed to the Lord: ‘O Lord, I beg you, let the man of God you sent to us come again to teach us how to bring up the boy who is to be born.'”

Now that’s a prayer! In an effort to learn how to bring up our own boy, we started going to church, even Sunday School, got baptized and started tithing. It was honestly not a “vending-machine” experiment with God but an authentic compulsion toward obedience that I can’t fully explain, apart from the Power of a very patient Holy Spirit.

Then came what James promises. We encountered ‘various trials’. A near-death delivery of our son that left us praying through sobs, “Lord, he was yours from the beginning. You get to take him if You want.” Courage.

$22,000 of neonatal medical bills (on top of foolish credit card debt) and my wife asks, do we tithe or buy groceries this week? Courage.

A surgeon who tells you your young, beautiful wife may not live through the multiple heart-bypass surgery he must perform. Courage.

In the movie Courageous, I am reminded that Courage is indeed what it takes to get you through being Scared. There’s a great line in the movie where the main character, Adam, tells his son,

“What I want for you is that you seek the Lord, that you trust Him, even if it means you’re standing alone.”

You will definitely have plenty of opportunities to be courageous when in service for the King and, yes, you might even find yourself standing alone among men. Isn’t that exactly what happened to Jesus at Calvary? Talk about Courage!

Selling out to Christ is Scary and takes Courage. But remember, the God who gives you Courage will never leave you nor forsake you.

Take it from me, it’s never too late for you to be Courageous but real, lasting Courage starts at the Cross. Why not begin there today?

“At some point a man needs to decide who he is and what he stands for. If he isn’t sure, his environment will swallow him up…I know it’s tough to stand up and stand out for your faith. But there’s no middle ground. Either you’re on the team or you’re not. Either you proudly wear the jersey or your embarrassed and you take it off, so why not be who you really are?” – Tim Brown, NFL Hall of Famer

“It’s the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston Churchill

“The test of courage comes when we are in the minority; the test of tolerance is when we are in the majority.” – Ralph Sockman