Some En-COURAGEMENT

Several years ago while visiting my 86-year old mother in South Carolina, I met an inspiring 93-year old man named Charlie. Terry and I enjoyed a delightful dinner with him and my mother one evening, during which he described how he was about to embark on a one-week sailing expedition across the North Atlantic with one of his sons. And this trip was only one of the many trips he had planned during the decade of his nineties.

I love people like Charlie. None would ever accuse him of not being spry. I was thinking about Charlie recently when I read of another older man—an octogenarian named Caleb. At a time when most people his age were showing signs of slowing down and wishing for easy tasks, Caleb asks for a hard one. Joshua, his close friend and admirer granted his request and Caleb set out at once to drive a difficult people called the Anakim from the land. You can read about his inspiring story in Joshua 14-15.

What prompts people like Charlie and Caleb to tackle tasks like these in their twilight years? I long for this kind of faithful courage even as I get older. For a long time I believed that courage was the absence of fear. But what I’m learning is that courage is not the absence of fear—courage is acting and carrying on in spite of my fears. This means that oftentimes I will need to act brave, even if I don’t feel brave because most people don’t know the difference. If I’m not scared or fearful about what I’m doing, chances are pretty good that the hill I’m trying to take is not big enough.

"Courage is fear that has said its prayers." Anne Lamott

Maybe one of the reasons why the Bible tells us to encourage each other so much is because we give in so much to UN-couragement or fear. What I lack most times is courage. When I en-COURAGE others or when I am en-COURAGED by others, I find His strength to sail an ocean, serve the poor, share my faith or stand my ground.

Now let’s go take the hill.

S t r e t c h e d