This is a picture taken in 1923 of the New York City police testing the first bulletproof vest on a human.
Can you imagine the angst of the gentleman wearing the vest? He looks so calm and collected, but I am sure his insides were nothing but chaotic insanity. Truth be told, we are looking at the picture of a man that almost certainly had a bowel movement of epic proportion.
Just looking at this picture even makes me all Slim Shady: palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy… no spaghetti vomit on my sweater though. I don’t wear sweaters. And my mom didn’t make a lot of pasta dishes. Now back to our originally scheduled program already in progress….
Our culture would tend to champion the gentleman wearing the vest as someone with immeasurable courage. A man with the heart of a lion. Someone who stared possible death in the face to save the lives of countless others. Numerous other maxims exalting his otherworldly bravery.
I am a witness to greater courage almost daily.
Several years ago my wife and I had an emotional conversation with our 8th grade daughter. She was expressing the intense, sometimes overwhelming pressure she feels (you do too) to compromise all that she deeply desires and values. As tears flowed and her heart boiled over and out, I made a passing comment to her to just BE YOU. The next morning, on our way to school, I glanced down at her hand. She had written BE YOU in bold letters on the top of her hand: a simple reminder of perhaps the most courageous thing a student can do: to BE YOU in a world that is constantly trying to challenge and change you.
Our daughter is not an anomaly. You are no different. Thousands upon thousands of students who know Jesus personally, love Jesus deeply, want to be the extraordinary, unique version of themselves that God created them to be.
Straight up: you want to be great. In every area of your life, there is at least a tinge of desire for being more than average. All of us have this inkling, this yearning, I think, because of what Solomon in Ecclesiastes declares about eternity being branded in our hearts since the beginning of our existence. That means, among many things, that a very, very vast longing (eternity) is at work in a world that offers a ton of small, counterfeit satisfactions. And something has to span the chasm between being like every other teenager on planet earth and being the masterpiece, the image bearer, that God created you to be and demonstratively declares you are.
That something is courage.
C.S. Lewis once stated, “Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.” In other words, courage is the substance of greatness. Yours, however, is a generation of students who grow fearful, who bow out at that testing point. In matters of faith, family, relationships, choices, courage gives way to mediocrity, to hesitancy, to compromise.
But let me lay down a funky beat for you real quick: What would your life look like if your heart were bolstered by courage?
Think about the regrets, great or small, that you have in life. Wouldn’t courage in a moment of choice made a huge difference?
Consider the paths underneath your feet right now: If you don’t have courage, what path will you choose?
Isn’t it true that what separates you from who you were created to be, want to become, what you want to do, where you want to be is something really hard? And isn’t equally if not even more true that what you need to bridge that separation is courage?
But how do I become more courageous? I am glad you asked…
Dive into the Scriptures and see just how often God’s people needed to be encouraged. You will find that courage is a prerequisite for greatness. You will also notice that those who bowed out when they should have bowed up live in infamous obscurity. The Bible screams that greatness and courage are best friends. BFFs. Homies. Buzz and Woody. Jay Z and Beyonce. You get the idea.
Trash the idea that to be courageous means you are never afraid. Fear is a prerequisite for courage. If you were not afraid, why would you need to be brave? Most of us never exercise courage because we think “I am afraid. I can’t.” No: Because I am fearful, I must. Fear is the indicator that courage is required. Fear is your cue that courage is due.
I JUST WENT SNOOP DOGG RYMIN’ ON YALL FOOLS!
Never underestimate how far your courage will stretch. You think that living courageously doesn’t matter? You are creating a legacy for your future, your future spouse, your children, your children’s children, the world by the courageous life you display today. You have no clue what hangs in the balance of whether you will act courageously. Consider the stories coming out of Ukraine of a Ukrainian woman who knocked down a Russian drone with a jar of pickled tomatoes… or the Ukrainian woman who told Russian soldiers to put sunflower seeds in their pockets so that flowers can grow when they die. Do you realize that without the courage of a Jewish orphan girl who became the Queen of Persia and risked her own life for the sake of the Jewish race some 470+ years before, there would have been no Jesus born to a Hebrew teenager? Read the book of Esther. Courage is elastic. Courage stretches.
Pump the brakes comparing courage. I like to race senior adults that speed walk in the mall. It makes me feel Usain Bolt fast (just like bathing with those little bars of hotel soap makes me feel like I have huge muscles). All kidding aside, imagine just how much courage it takes for that senior citizen to get up every day and “attack the track” inside the Mall of Georgia. Courage is relative. What may seem minuscule, easy to you is enormously hard for someone else. You just be brave enough for you. Bulletproof vest testing is not necessarily necessary.
To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to change you will be your greatest accomplishment.
BE BRAVE.
BE YOU.
As a next generation leader worth following, courage is a downpayment for influence. It is nonnegotiable. It comes with the territory. If you do not want to be brave, you do not want to lead. Better stated, if you want to be a leader, you have to be courageous.
All of us are always being brave in some way or another. How have you recognized this to be true in your life or the lives of those around you? Can you see it in your choices and actions over the past week?
For most people you know, what would you say appear to be the most common objects of their bravery?
__________
Journal your thoughts. We will discuss this later in the month in the Circle…