Courage

This journey of life has taught me one clear lesson, COURAGE is needed. Courage is defined as: mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty. It is without doubt that life will encompass danger, fear, and difficulty. So, what is one to do with such promising prospects?

You have only two real choices when faced with life's harsh realities. The first choice is to cower and shrink back from the world before you hoping to hold on to what you have left. This is not a great option. One of the great truisms of life is that you are either gaining or losing. Rarely can one simply maintain. Money is either increasing or decreasing. The same with strength, wisdom, spiritual formation and so on. Hence the decision to shrink back and hold is actually a decision to slowly lose all. This type of thing will frustrate an individual because he won't know why he is losing when he isn't moving? Answer; because while you are standing still everything else is moving on.

The second choice one is presented with is to put your head down and run forward as hard as you can enduring the blows and gaining ground. This is the option I have chosen. You can't avoid pain, suffering, heartbreak, fear, difficulty, or loss. What you can do is continue to move forward and enjoy life's experiences as they come. You can make every moment count. A courageous life is not a life void of fear. It is life in the midst of fear. It is the ability to enjoy the great pleasures while persevering through great pain and learning from it.

Jesus Christ, the greatest man to have ever walked the earth, was not void of disappointment. He was not without danger. Yet, he pressed on through life with determination and purpose. I hold him as our highest and greatest example. He is the model for living. Hence, though life may crucify you, you must press through the it all to get to the other side of joy...which is redemption.

One of my favorite movies is The Matrix. Agent Smith, the primary villain, is at one point completely destroyed by Neo the hero. At the beginning of the next installment of the movie series Agent Smith leaves a message fore Neo. In the message he thanks Neo for setting him free. It may be rare that you learn a life lesson from a villain but one is here. It was in the destruction of Agent Smith's paradigm of existence that he truly lived life and was set free. He was no longer operating by fear but by a fearless determination to continue on.

I plead with you to choose the road of courage. The road of fear and disappointment only produces the same. It is a miserable living with so few benefits. This life promises pain and suffering. I ask the question, "If you are going to suffer, why not suffer for a purpose?" There is no purpose in fear. Purpose can be found in courage.