This Sunday I am talking about David's experience with the bear, the lion and Goliath. I have a few questions for you...
- What is courage?
- Is courage something you either have or not? or can we grow in courage? How and Why?
- Have you had a specific experience which illustrates your perspective?
Look forward to hearing from you!
6 comments:
Wow. Great question.
First thought:
Courage is tough to define because I feel like it is always masquerading as something else. Maybe a better way to put it is that courage can't exist on its own...it has to manifested through boldness, or perseverance, or determination, etc.
Courage - stepping forward (literally or metaphorically) when most would step back.
Second thought:
C.S. Lewis is much smarter than me.
Check this out...
"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."
That punches me in the gut...especially the bit about Pilate. How often am I merciful until its risky, or bold until its uncomfortable, or generous until its inconvenient....where those intentions cease or progress is the point where courage is either absent or present.
My personal experience with courage:
In late 2001 my dad was in a bad car accident. had to be life-flighted downtown because they thought he was having a heart attack. ended up having some bad cuts on his legs, and a cracked vertebrae, virtual scrapes compared to the fact that the woman who hit him passed away at impact. Weeks after the wreck, my dad went back to work, only to be laid off weeks later. It was a roller coaster. Enron had just hit houston, so the whole city was out of work. Dad spent 6 months looking for work with former competitors to no avail.
here's where the courage comes in....
my former executive vice-president father got a job selling washers and dryers at Sears in the mall. For a year he stood on his feet for 12 hours a day, working off commission, some days going home with nothing but minimum wage pay. Friends of the family from our well-to-do suburb would pass him, awkwardly talking to him, not wanting to ask the wrong question as to why he was there. 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, 12 months....and the man never complained. ever.
courage:
"God is going to make this job enough to take care of my family."
"I'm willing to humble myself to provide for my wife and son."
"I refuse to let anyone pity me. I choose not to complain."
To this day, that I have never learned as much from any sermon, class, or book as i did from talking to my father throughout that process.
Roger McCormack showed me that courage is sometimes a CHOICE to embrace a variety of traits (humility, strength, perseverance, selflessness) when it would be much easier to do the opposite.
This was long...sorry for rambling. Hope that sheds some light....
FROM Scott Harris:
Do you have Bill Hybels book, Courageous Leadership?
Andy Stanley also has some great stuff on leadership?
What is courage?
It is moving in the right direction in spite of your fears.
Is courage something you either have or not...?
There are times, seasons, moments, whatever when one might feel courageous. But I would argue that is not courage at all. Again, I really don't think you can act courageously without fear. And I think we're all afraid of something/someone. So, I desperately hope one can grow in courage or I've probably reached my leadership lid.
I'm in the most fearful time of my ministry right now. Starting the church was easy (comparatively) because I had nothing to loose. But we're re-engineering everything. And though I have great people around me, they don't get their paycheck from the church...I do!
Hope this helps! See you a little later.
Scott
FROM Jeremiah Andrick:
Ok, so I here are my thoughts on Courage (only slightly stolen from tom peters and others.) I admit it is a frenetic, but I am at work and I just pulled from some of my docs and had a few minutes between meetings.
What is courage, What does it look like?
1. Courage as Audacity
All quests worth undertaking—a Girl Scout merit badge or a Nobel Prize—require audacity.
And willpower. (Of course.)
And persistence. (To be sure.)
But, frankly, a persistent misreading of the odds. The odds in 1940 of Charles de Gaulle at
the head of a parade liberating Paris in 1944? The odds of Martin Luther King, Jr., emerging
from Ebenezer Baptist Church in 1954…then speaking to 400,000 gathered on the Mall
in Washington in 1963? The odds of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates humbling IBM, of Sam Walton
sneaking out of Bentonville, Arkansas, and throwing the fear of God into the worldʼs premier
retailers?
The odds in each case were 100 times greater than the longest shot in horse track history. Yet
each actor mentioned above had the sheer audacity to challenge conventional wisdom (courage), accept
the lumps upon lumps associated therewith—and persist until victory.
2. Love the mess!
The difference-makers thrive on chaos that would intimidate others (COURAGE). Jefferson and Adams.
Lewis and Clark. Lincoln and Grant. TR and FDR. Churchill and Thatcher and Giuliani. The best
companies, Iʼve discovered, are the most disorganized. (Take note that I didnʼt say undisciplined.)
Their leaders assemble a bulging portfolio of mavericks…and launch those mavericks
on maverick initiatives. They know that what they know is small beer compared to what they
donʼt know—and only a passel of passionate and peculiar pioneers will successfully sort
through the mess. To be sure, most of those pioneers will fail…but the successful remnant,
alone, will vault the firm or public institution to its next performance plateau. Organization is
needed to execute our daily chores; yet all progress (All. Big Word.) depends on counterintuitive
leaps into the unknown. Hence, it depends on those who cherish the mess.
Put your all into surviving today’s
tsunamis…and let the day
after tomorrow take care of itself. (Sound Familiar?)
3. Powerlessness is a State of Mind! Or a sad state of the soul
(Think Jesus, Think King. Think Gandhi. Think de Gaulle.)
I have a clear belief: Powerlessness is an advantage, not a disadvantage. Why? Because “powerless”
people work in nooks and crannies, and are invisible enough to be able to surreptitiously
pursue contrarian strategies.
Contrarian Strategies change the world.
4.Courage requires grace
Celeste Cooper, designer: “My favorite word is ʻgraceʼ—whether itʼs ʻamazing grace,ʼ ʻsaving
grace,ʼ ʻgrace under fire,ʼ ʻGrace Kelly.ʼ How we live contributes to beauty—whether itʼs how
we treat other people or the environment.”
Iʼve fallen madly in love with…“grace.” And itʼs led me to wonder,
“Why so little discussion of (the likes of) ʻgraceʼ in management books, or in the hallways and
conference rooms of enterprise?” We don’t see this lack of grace in the bible, but why in our churches, boardrooms, homes?
Enterprises (businesses, churches, non-profits or any enterprise) after all, exist only to…serve. Serve…employees. Serve…customers. Serve…vendors. Serve communities, serve shareholders, serve the powerless, serve the greater good. Service is an act of…grace.
My favorite synonym finder, Rodaleʼs, offers these analogues to grace: elegance…charm…
loveliness…poetry in motion…kindliness…benevolence…benefactor…compassion…beauty.
To be sure, I believe in the rough and tumble of competitive business and of modern life. After all, Iʼm a Technicolor Guy. But I also believe that a passion for changing the world is no excuse for running roughshod over oneʼs fellows. Courage must be moral
Ah, yes, grace.
Is courage something you either have or not? or can we grow in
courage? How and Why?
The only way to whip an army is
to go out and fight it.” —Grant (General, not Amy)
When General Patton was just an infantry man in WWI his greatest fear was that when faced with battle he would turn and run. In his journals Patton describes a moment when he had to lead his first charge and as he feared he froze. In the heat of this moment, he claims to have “seen his ancestors” calling to him to follow them into battle. Patton is known to have yelled, “ It is time for another Patton to die!” just before leading that charge. Patton was injured but from that day until he was relieved of duty at the end of WWII. Patton would go to the front lines and regularly stand in harm’s way. Not because he was fearless, but because being in harms way allowed him to summon the courage to move forward.
Courage is something that can grow in us as God enables us to face the challenges of everyday life. I don’t believe that anyone has any more courage than anyone else. I believe some people are better at digging deep within and without to anchors that help them call up that courage.
To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily. To not dare is to lose oneself. SOREN KIERKEGARD
Have you had a specific experience which illustrates your perspective?
By any fair standard I have had an easy life. I grew up in America where I was told I could do anything I put my mind. But for me, what made me inspires me to face day to day challenges and never give up is my great grandfather. My great grandfather came to America, the son of a poor ship builder. His older brother had saved one year’s wage to move to America. But he fell ill the day before the journey and could not go. His parents decided to send the next oldest son (my great grandfather) so that the wages would not be lost. With ten dollars and a train ticket to Chicago. My Great grandfather crossed the atlantic from Sweden to New York at only 11 years old. There was no one with him and he would never see his parents again. I can’t decide who was more courageous my great grandpa ed or his mother. Whenever I think something is hard or too difficult, I think about that trip and something inside me says move forward. Keep going.
I have no excuse for not doing great things. The sacrifices have been made and now it is up to me. Keep going.
I long to accomplish a great and noble tasks, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker. –Helen Keller
FROM Chris Judd:
Hey buddy, sorry for the long bout of silence on my end. I am alive and I've got a ton going on. I'm currently nursing a newly operated on right knee and have only been able to spend a little time online before the percoset knocks me out. Anyhoo, I love your questions so I suspended the use of narcotics to try to conjure some cogent thoughts.
I think courage can mean a couple things. There is a courage that comes apart from faith in Jesus. This is a courage that stems from personality, genetic makeup, socio-economic status, upbringing, etc. This kind of courage can be nurtured and shaped by environment and experience. I do believe that this courage is a gift from God--some residual glory left in our hearts from Creation. Courageous people do extraordinary things because they believe so strongly in the goodness or rightness of the goal that they can excel in the midst of terrific challenges. We see this kind of courage all the time and it is a very good thing.
This second kind of courage comes from faith, or more acutely knowing God. Worship is key to this. When we worship we are telling the truth about God and ourselves. We remember His love for us and His power over sin, death, hell, and the flesh. We are made aware of our desperation for His presence and our propensity to choose to serve ourselves rather than God or others. When we truly worship God, one can't help but receive courage. David is the perfect example of this. When you think of worship in the Old Testament, you think of David. It is no coincidence that when we think of great courage in OT we think of the same guy. It's because David dwelt in the presence of God. When He faced opposition, he was fresh out of a penning Israel's latest power ballad of God's strength. He was pumped up like he just got out of a Carmen concert. :) Telling the truth in worship grants us a huge paradigm shift in our perception of the world and it's troubles. The bears, lions, and giants shrink in comparison to their Creator.
Worship-based courage can absolutely be grown and nurtured. The community of the Church is the context of where, and often how, we grow our courage. When we hear brothers and sisters tell their stories, we receive courage. When we lack courage and can be honest about that need, we can remind each other of God's greatness by praying for and worshipping with those who need it.
I know that without worship-based courage I would be in a pretty hopeless place. I know this without a doubt: without worship, I am a cowardly man. In the darkest moments of my life I have found the courage to move forward because I know God's love and greatness. This courage came to me by being in community with people who tell the truth about God and themselves. My family, friends, and church have always pointed me to the hope and power of the Cross. When I examine myself before the Cross, I realize that giving up or turning back is total foolishness because he did not and will not give up on me.
Dude, I'm stoked for you about this Sunday. Thanks for letting me share my thoughts. I'm never short on words it seems so if you ever find yourself in a deficiency...I'm your man. haha..
FROM Jeremy Vallerand:
i don't know that i have anything new to bring to this discussion. i feel like i just learned more about courage than i could ever hope to offer. with that said, i'll give it a whirl.
I think courage is a paradox and i think the paradox is this: courage begins when you refuse to back down from your instincts because you know they are right or when you ignore your instincts because you know they are wrong. the ability to decipher which one applies in a given circumstance is wisdom, the inability is wrecklessness or foolishness.
i'm not sure if that makes any sense so let me try to illustrate. When you were young and you saw a bully picking on the class nerd and pushing him around because he was small and couldn't defend himself, most of you had an immediate instinctual desire to intervene and defend the kid who couldn't defend himself. the extend to which you intervened is the extent to which you exercised courage. The opposite is also true. Take for example the story of a soldier throwing himself on a grenade to protect his friend in the foxhole beside him. I guarantee that no man has an instinctual response to throw himself atop an explosive devise, in fact i'd be willing to bet that instinct would tell you to jump the opposite direction with no thought of the guy beside you. in this case courage meant overcoming instinct in an act of greater good.
in both instances, the level of courage is directly proportionate to the level of risk involved. The more risk, the more courage is required. if there is no risk, there is no need for courage. Where this gets interesting is when it comes to real vs. perceived risk. I believe that courage is most frequently found in an unobservable form that is not evident to the naked eye. most of the circumstances we will face in our life that require courage are in relation to perceived risk not REAL risk. think about the number one fear in America, public speaking. For some people the amount of courage it would take to stand up in front of a handful of people and introduce themselves is the most terrifying thing they can think of. Instinct tells them to retreat, to hide, to avoid being in front of people at all cost but courage enables them to stand, with a trembling voice, and speak. There is no real risk involved, no danger or impending physical doom, but the courage needed is real, even though the risk is only perceived... and most people would never even know how much courage it took to overcome something so (real)risk free.
I believe that this perspective on perceived risk is important in the church because it is exactly where most people who don't know Jesus are at. The amount of courage it takes for someone who is unchurched to walk in the doors of a church, let alone surrender their life to Jesus takes an enormous amount of courage because they perceive the risk to be so great. It is important that we learn to celebrate courage the overcomes perceived risk as well as real risk... because as we say in the marketing world "perception is reality"
my 2 cents.
WOW guys! All of you have given such thoughtful and powerful comments! I appreciate your friendship, insight and shared passion to live the gospel.
Be praying for us this Sunday.
JOSH
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