Daily Devotional

What comes to your mind when you hear the word “courage”? When I was in high school some of my friends and I had the great idea to go climb a local radio tower. We waited till it was night and drove out to a mountain that had a huge tower on it. As I stood there looking up at this massive tower, I was pretty sure it had to be at least 10,000 feet high. Yes, I know that’s not really the case, but that’s how high it felt at that moment. In reality, I’m guessing it was closer to 50 or 75 feet.

We all went over to the base of the tower and started our climb. Slowly but surely, we made our way up this tower and finally paused to look out and enjoy the view. I have to admit it was a spectacular sight. After sitting up there for a little while, we began our descent back to earth. As we climbed down, something strange happened. My arms and legs now felt like jello and my grip on the rails didn’t seem nearly as strong as it did on the way up. I remember this moment quite clearly because I spent the entire descent praying that God would get me down safely. I told Him if I could just get my feet back on the ground, I would never do anything that stupid again. While I have done plenty of other stupid stuff, I never climbed another radio tower.
I know many people are afraid of heights, so something like climbing a tall tower might seem courageous but the reality was it was just stupid. I think the difference between courage and foolishness is that courage counts the cost whereas foolishness doesn’t.

The definition of courage is “the ability to do something that frightens one.” I wasn’t frightened of climbing that tower, though I should have been, so on the way up it didn’t really require courage. On the way down I was indeed terrified of falling but I also had to get down, so I’m not sure that’s courage either. Being courageous is when we look at a difficult situation and decide to do what is right no matter the cost.

In our lives, there will be many instances where we need to have courage. To have courage I believe we also need conviction, which is simply a deeply held belief. Joshua 1:9 tells us to be courageous but also tells us how to do it, by remembering, by being convinced that God is with us. Our courage isn’t based on our foolishness or on our strength, it’s instead based on the God who goes before us and with us.

No matter the situation we face today or tomorrow we can be strong, we can be courageous because God is with us. No, we’re not guaranteed things will work out as we want or that we’ll always have a happy outcome, but we are guaranteed that God is with us. As long as we are convinced of that, we can face each day with courage.

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.