If you were to pick an animal to represent courage, what would you pick? I’m thinking it would probably be a lion or another fierce animal. If you were to pick a profession that is courageous, what would you pick? I would bet my husband’s pickup that you picked a firefighter or a cop and you are picturing a big beefy strong man. Ladies, stop that right now! This is not that kind of blog.

What if we have courage all wrong? What if courage is best represented by a tiny mouse? What if the most courageous career is a waitress, a teacher or a nurse? What if courage is more commonly found in women and children and not in grown men? Mind-blowing, huh?

So what is courage? Maybe a definition would be helpful. If you were to define courage, you might say that it is acting without fear. But that is actually the opposite of the definition in the dictionary. You might be surprised to know that both the Oxford dictionary and Webster’s include fear in their definition of courage. My favorite is, “Courage is the ability to do something that frightens one”. By this definition, courage and fear are tied together. If you are not frightened, how could you be courageous? This means courage doesn’t exist without fear. So those of us who are the most frightened are actually in a position to be the most courageous!

So if you want to see courage in biblical action, don’t look at Samson. Look at those in the most vulnerable positions like Rahab, the prostitute who led the Israelite spies to safety. Look at Mary the mother of Jesus, who had to evade folks trying to kill her baby and raise the Savior of the world. Look at Esther who had to stare possible death in the face and stand up to the King in a culture of manipulation and male domination. Look to those who lived in fear of being fed to the lions, who hid in caves and cellars but still continued on spreading the Good News anyway.

Oh what I would give to be one of those happy-go-lucky fearless people! But they are not courageous. They can’t be. Because without fear, there is no courage. Only the most fearful have the capacity for the most courage. This is quite upside-down to our accepted world definition of courage. It doesn’t take as much courage to be a mighty lion as it does to be a tiny “snack-a-licious” mouse.

Notice also in the definition of courage, it is not the ability to do something that frightens EVERYONE but the ability to do something that frightens ONE. It may be your own personal fear, something in which no one else takes issue. So next time you wake up fearing what the day ahead will bring, know that you have been placed in a position that demands courage. Pray to God for the ability to keep on keeping on. Trust Him to give you the courage to face your own personal giants. Then at the end of this day, celebrate the victory of being a courageous hero over your fear.