Think of all the
movies and books out there with the word “brave” in the title. There’s
Braveheart, Brave, Home of the Brave,
and Brave New World just to name a
few. If we then added all of the
movies and books that have bravery as their theme, it would morph into a
seriously long list! Bravery is
one of the words we love. It
brings to mind greatness, victory.
When I watch these movies or read these books it seems there’s always
someone who is brave in the face of tremendous challenge, who unfailingly
sticks to a greater purpose and vision and never waivers in their belief, even
when everyone else around them does.
They have integrity and honor.
They never fail. I sit up a
little straighter when I hear about them.
It makes me want to be a better person.
I wish I could be one
of those people. I really do! I want to be this fearless warrior who
demolishes the enemy against tremendous odds and comes out on top; I want to be
the one who, even in failure, has such unshakeable faith in my cause that those
around me are inspired. But the
truth is I’m not. I do fail; I waiver in my vision and in my
belief in what can be. My faith
falters. I suspect yours does,
too.
Guess what? We’re in good company! One of my favorite characters in the
Bible is Moses. Why? Because he doubts and waivers like I
do. When God calls him to do
extraordinary things, Moses doesn’t snap to attention, jump in and start making
history. Instead, his first response is, “But why me?
What makes you think that I could ever go to Pharaoh and lead the children of
Israel out of Egypt?” (Ex. 3:11 MSG)
So
God tells Moses He’ll be with him.
He reveals the name He wants to be called by His people to Moses and
gives him very specific direction on exactly how to move forward with this
vision. Does Moses finally get
excited? No! He
comes back with, “They won’t trust me. They won’t listen to a
word I say. They’re going to say, ‘God? Appear to him?
Hardly!’” (Ex 4:1 MSG)
God
then does a few miracles for Moses and lets him know He will give Moses special
powers to use. But does our man Moses finally understand God is
on his side, find faith, and start taking steps forward? No. He begins to make excuses about how he
isn’t a very good speaker and how he’s actually kinda slow. God encourages Moses again and tells
him He’ll give Moses the words and teach him what to say.
Okay,
even I at this point would begin to believe God had some pretty remarkable
plans laid out for me and would really hold my hand and grant me tremendous
victory. Yet this is why I love
Moses. He doesn’t say, “Woohoo,
God! Let’s go!” Instead,
he says, “Please, Lord, I beg you to send Your message through someone
else, anyone else.” (Ex. 4:13)
Even then, God doesn’t change
His mind about Moses. He gets
angry, yes. He tells him He’ll let
his brother Aaron can come along and speak on Moses’ behalf. But He never withdraws His vision for
Moses. Nearly two entire chapters
of the Bible are devoted to God trying to convince Moses He’s with him (that’s
a huge amount of biblical real estate – most of the others we read about who
are called by God get a few sentences or a paragraph at best) and Moses is
still skeptical. I can relate to
that. And rather interestingly
Aaron never really does speak on Moses’ behalf to the people. Moses does all the speaking. God just told Moses what he needed to
hear in the moment.
I
think we’re all a lot like Moses.
We want to be more like the William Wallace we see in the movie Braveheart, but in reality we, like
Moses, question God; we don’t want to
understand and ultimately we don’t want to go down the road that lays before us
- even when we finally get it’s the right road! Obviously Moses did some amazing, remarkable things and
became one of our greatest bible legends ever. That’s why I like him.
He reminds me God will still do miraculous things in my life even when I
have a hard time believing Him, or in getting myself and my fears out of God’s
way.
There
is a quote I love from the book Allegiant
by Veronica Roth. It says,
“There
are so many ways to be brave in this world. Sometimes bravery involves laying
down your life for something bigger than yourself, or for someone else.
Sometimes it involves giving up everything you have ever known, or everyone you
have ever loved, for the sake of something greater.
But sometimes it doesn't.
Sometimes it is nothing
more than gritting your teeth through pain, and the work of every day, the slow
walk toward a better life.
That is the sort of bravery
I must have now.”
So today, I encourage you to explore what day-to-day bravery looks like – not the William Wallace
bravery but the messy, not always straightforward, sometimes wavering bravery
of Moses. I have personally
experienced and now believe this kind of daily bravery will bring about many
tiny little miracles in your life that over time become the most important
miracle of all – the joy and peace that comes from a transformed, renewed life.
For further thought: The late, great Winston Churchill said, "Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts."
Being brave isn’t always about doing big things; it’s about continuing
to work on growing day by day. What is one way you can personally move forward this week? Feel free to post your action plan!
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