to the hilt.

"be courageous."
I have said it, had it said to me...but i have some questions...

Is courage a spiritual quality? Or a natural quality? Do some people have it and some don't?

I stumbled across this in some reading late(very late) last night. The word courage comes from the Latin word cor, which means "heart".

A courageous act is an act coming from the heart. A courageous word is a word arising from the heart. The heart, however, is not just the place where our emotions are located. The heart is the centre of our being, the centre of all thoughts, feelings, passions, and decisions. Its the womb of our dreams, the place of our divine DNA (who we were meant to be as His kids).

Being courageous is living with your heart. Putting it all on the table and givin' er...

with that on the table, I have some thoughts...so follow me for a sec...

Life provides us with opportunities to catch glimmers of who we are, or who we could be.

I had a conversation regarding 'religion' once and it made me think about the word 'courageous', in its best sense. James talks about religion of value. Religion you ask? Yeah, religion; something that describes an area of life and experience where in some way or another we have stumbled into mystery and heard a summons to follow. An encounter that overwhelms us in that we have glimpsed something (or Someone) so far beyond us and bigger than us that we are captured...either by fear or love.

I think in some way we are all mystics, filled with a hunger for the supernatural...the taste, the touch, the feel, the awareness of that which is beyond us...we all carry a yearning for mystery.

AND really, we have all seen more than we let on...even to ourselves. Through moments of beauty or pain we catch glimmers of what the "saints" or "hero's" of the faith were absolutely fixated by. But what separates them from the average person is not the experience. Rather, its their response. The reality that captured and held them, we tend to miss or DISmiss in order to go on as if nothing happened. No pause. No reflection. Little more than a pulse fluxuation.

Come on. Stop pretending you don't know. Relationship break up - cry for a day, find a new one. Sharp word spoken in anger to you - speak one back and move on. Loneliness - pick your medication...food, TV, porn, work, people. Insecurity - find something that you are good at and don't venture out ever again. Positives? Personal relationships - eye contact, a moment that creates opportunity to express love...and there is that uncomfortable pause and desperate lunge towards escape by cracking a joke or saying something sarcastic. Quiet - an opportunity to sit, to pause, to reflect on who we are and who we are becoming. Instead we look for the remote or something to do. A Divine Moment springs from a conversation or a prayer, where God once again stirs the dreams of your heart - find a way to stuff them back in and move on, cuz I mean, its not reasonable to think that stuff...are you following me yet?

We find ways to regain control...regain the flatline. But a truly alive and courageous heart has peaks and valleys...highs and lows...pain and joy...regularly...and each of those moments are filled with the awesome, overwhelming, mystical reality of the alive Lord Jesus...not our fake, serene looking deadpan Jesus, the one in most paintings. BUT the inescapable passionate Jesus who created us to live fully alive.

To allow something to be as it is, to admit something HAS happened in us even though we are not sure what it is, or where we are supposed to go with it...that is a powerful part what this journey of FAITH is all about.
Don't shut it off. Don't shut it down...let it be what it is and embrace it...Because He is in the middle of all of it. In order to engage the reality of Jesus, the path goes through your heart. Does it mean we live by emotion? No, we live by following the LIVING WORD...and feeling the tension, struggle, hardship, joy, exhilaration that colours and shades our lives is part of the incredible experience we call FAITH!

Courage. Living with your heart.
What did God say to Joshua? 7 times in 3 chapters. BE STRONG AND what?
Yeah. my translation? let me give you the strength to live out the dream(s) of your heart. a promised land. ignore the nay sayers, the people who will never believe and RUN.
The key? Don't shut your heart off. Your heart speaks the language of courage.
And the pain and joy that is a part of the pursuit? Do something with it. write. paint. speak. sculpt. design. do. start. live. love.
Let your heart feel and breath and speak and sing...in the words of the martyr Jim Elliot, wherever you are, be all there, live life to the hilt.

Embrace it all, and maybe you will learn something about the profound mystery that is you...and the God who made you.

Let me leave you with a story I read about Blaise Pascal. No room to tell you who he is...look him up.
After he had died a servant found this paper sown into his jacket "since about half past ten in the evening until half past midnight. Fire. Certitude. Certitude. Feeling. Joy. Peace." This great man, stammering it out like a little child. But he had to...its what we do when we are courageous...we find a way to get it out.

read the book of Joshua...or at least the first 5 chapters...you'll see what I mean.
yearning,
Jonathan