Psalm 31:24
"Be of good courage,
And He shall strengthen your heart,
All you who hope in the Lord."
It is said that courage is grace under fire. I think courage is grace enduring the burning flame of hardship and persecution and opposition and never giving in or up or out, persevering to the end in hope, not a pointless hope or a merely desperate hope, but a confident hope that whatever the outcome of the battle may be, the battle is the Lord's.
Soldiers need courage, but so do pilgrims, "strangers in a strange land" trying to find their way Home at last amid the perils of a world that offers Evil a place to hide and Horror a permanent address.
So, the Way for the believer is full of peril: moral and spiritual and physical and psychological perils too numerous to name. We live in a very dangerous world: read the front page of any newspaper today or listen to CNN tonight. For such a world, the pilgrim soul must have real sustenance, a hearty, stick-to-your-ribs sort of moral meal that will provide strength for the journey and energy for the conflicts.
Dangerous Journey is the name of a favorite book of mine, a retelling of the classic Pilgrim's Progress, written in 1676 by John Bunyan while he was imprisoned for a moral cause. (He wouldn't pay for the "right" to preach the Gospel in public and was jailed for his debts to the state for not making that payment.)
If you want a deep spiritual challenge to your inner pilgrim self -- the part of you that longs for acceptance in this world but knows that your only real HOME lies with HIM in the next -- get the book, read it and reread it. The images will sustain your mind and give courage to your heart. I promise. I read this book to my daughter Juliana the first time when she was six. She loved it then and rereads it periodically now, even as she approaches her 19th birthday. Read this book to your children and your grandchildren and nieces and nephews and neighbors. Make fear diminish as faith and hope and love do their work.
If that's not enough for you to think about this week, try this on for size: have you every considered the "Dangerous Duty of Delight?" Has your heart ever held back from joy because you feared some part of God's love for you, HIS grace toward you was simply too good to be true. Then, take courage from these articles by Pastor John Piper.
Do real spiritual battle by trusting in God's delight in you and in the fact that HE wants you to take delight in knowing HIM. Read (or listen to) both The Dangerous Duty of Delight and Future Grace Explained.
You and I don't get to choose whether or not we'll live dangerously. The world we live in is a dangerous place. What you and I do get to choose is how and whether we will face the dangers on our way Home to the ONE who loves us and will welcome us there. May it be that you and I will keep on choosing to demonstrate HIS "grace under fire."
