Courage

Terror. Stark raving terror. When our worst fears become our reality.

No words can assuage this fierce assault on our inner identity and our place of refuge from the storms of life. When life becomes unbearable and there is no relief in sight, what do we do then? Where do we hide? With what do we fight?

When our faith is faltering, our hope is dim, and our love seems far removed, it seems that all the usual weapons of our warfare are no longer working.

Can we just wait on the Lord to come and rescue us and renew our hope, our faith and our love?

Waiting is not our favorite activity. It is far from easy. Your might even say that it is torturous. It is our last option, our last ditch effort to regain our life. We can thank and praise Our God and then just wait. He has always come through for us in the past, and he will come through again and again. This takes courage, maybe a type of courage that we have never experienced.

This is a courage that we may have hoped that we wouldn’t need in this life—the courage to face an enemy that we may not ever vanquish, a foe that just won’t leave us alone.

For this courage, we can look to our redeemer, Jesus. As the writer of Hebrews 2:14–15 (NAS) wrote: “Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.”

We have a Champion that has defeated our mortal enemy by dying for us to set us free from the fear of death and to end our slavery to our enemy and his bondages.

~ Brad Heilhecker