Psalm 23
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

Live with no fears. Live with courage. Can we live with courage and have the faith of David when he went up against Goliath?

When I was young I was sure of everything; in a few years, having been mistaken a thousand times, I was not half so sure of most things as I was before; at present, I am hardly sure of anything but what God has revealed to me – John Wesley. Repeat this…

We should realise that no matter what we are going through and no matter how overwhelmed or weak or misunderstood we may feel right now that we were never made to be a coward. If you feel weak then something wrong has happened in your past that needs to be dealt with. Courage was never intended for the few (as Hollywood suggests), courage is available to us all. Some of us haven’t become strong enough yet to be courageous. We have been beaten down by evil and now have to learn to stand on our two feet as we were born to do under God’s guidance. Listen to God. We must learn to have courage and stand up for ourselves.

Joshua Chapter 1, verse 9: Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.

You, I and everyone has the right to be courageous. Evil of course doesn’t want us to be courageous because then we would stand up and do the right thing, and Satan wants us to be hurting day in and day out, Satan wants us to blame God for all wrongs that happen to us that Satan does or tricks us into doing. God wants us to be courageous because he needs us to travel the world spreading the Good news, helping people and sharing His love to people everywhere. What a blessing it is to have inner-strength.

Don’t let today’s disappointments cast a shadow on tomorrow’s dreams .

Nobody needs to know fear. I knew fear when I wasn’t a Christian, but I know so much more now and feel stronger and more willing to do what I was once afraid of because I know that I have God behind me, because God is leading me, showing me the way of His choice for me which will help others. My inner-strength has grown to proportions that I never would of previously even dreamed
of. Like David sometimes we have to stand up against the giants of our life.

It takes courage to stand alone amongst those who don’t believe you and don’t believe what you believe. It takes courage to tell people that we believe in God, but I will tell you something. Once we do tell people, and once we do stand up for ourselves our great feeling of satisfaction and knowing that we can come forward at the right time and do what is required of us to do is amazing and
it is very comforting to know that we won’t back down when we know what is the right thing to do.

My courage has grown with the experiences that God has put me through over the last 8 years. many times new experiences have come up and sometimes I failed them and they would come up again and when I passed them and did the right thing I learnt, grew in courage and moved on to the next event, the next experience. Sometimes I thought I was alone, but now I know that I was never alone. Tha same is for you.

God planted the “seeds of experience”, We reply by reacting to them, and our faith and personal courage grow with each success.

1 Peter Chapter 5, verses 6-8: Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you. Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:

Your enemy Satan will work hard to make you stumble, to make you fall while God is trying to teach you. The reason that you struggle is that when you became a Christian you had addictions, bad habits, and other issues and God is trying to rid you off them and bring you to more happier habits and Satan is working hard to keep you addicted. You will get the thing that you feed the most – if you feed your addiction or sin then Satan wins, and God tries again to free you, and all the while that you accept the wrong thing you suffer and your life suffers. You have to follow God.

Psalm 34, verse 4: I sought the LORD, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.

Psalm 34, verse 6: This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles.

Psalm 34, verse 17: The righteous cry, and the LORD heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles.

Note it states that the Righteous cry and God hears. There is a lot of courage in knowing that we are not alone. With each experience, and personal growth there is also a growing in faith. Kind of like “Wow, God showed me this, put me through that, and wow, just look how I came out of it this time!” Amen.

“Thank you Lord!”

With an experience we grow in belief in ourselves. We have more faith in our ability to operate as useful people and our faith in God grows because He helped us learn, and He protected us through this test but let us have enough of a rough time to learn what we needed to learn. Our faith in ourselves and our faith in God grows each time.

God only gives us what we can deal with so when you get a real rough time remember this because you need to open your thinking to the fact that you can handle this even though it is so tough, sad, etc. You have the courage according to God to get through this, so do it and know your God better, and let your faith grow stronger.

It takes character to be who we want to be and be with who we want to be when others are telling us for their own good that we do as they say. But we are in control of our lives. We are the ones who we need to come through for us. Its no use waiting for heroes, when deep inside you a hero is waiting to be born, waiting to step forth and direct your own life. You have got to take you to where you want to be, after all, it is only you who really can. Believe in God’s path, yourself, and your destiny.

The courageous are givers. Those heroes that save people and try not to be recognised for their efforts, people who do things, sometimes at their own risk, for other people. The true courageous are strong willed, yet can feel fear, and can worry, and can wonder, and do cry when the time is right for this. Hollywood and television have once again come up with faked heroes that many people associate with real heroes. Our sporting stars, much the same as the stars of the Colosseum days are seen as heroes, yet all they do is play a simple game and get paid mega fortunes while people, the little guy and his family go without.

You don’t need to “act” anywhere to have courage because courage is in the heart and of the soul. No pruning your hair or strutting around, the real confident people don’t need that and don’t do that.

For me I would wonder “Could I do the weak thing and then live with myself afterwards?” This worried me a lot. Could I? All through my life their were certain things that I would not do no matter what and yet I weakened here and there under the guidance of the lost. Many of the people I knew didn’t bother with worrying if they were doing the right thing, or they worried about was if it felt good and if they were having fun doing it – morals were for fools who didn’t know how to have real fun. Many of those people are now dead, or looking very much the worse for wear. Courage means standing strong and doing the right thing.

Proverbs Chapter 25, verse 28: He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls.

As time went by I finally realised a very important thing, “All these people that I read about, were simple, People!” Yes, like you and I. They failed many things, and they succeeded with something.

I learnt that we are all courageous and that while young weak adults and older people than us took our courage away from us by their behaviour to wards us. Or very hard events hit us and we were not able to mentally (like anyone else) deal with them. The point is that we are all courageous until we are hurt so bad that we become defensive, weak, arrogant etc.

The essence of greatness is in every soul, and every heart. There is nobody who is beyond the reach of happiness and the love of God. We can be what we want to be, where we want to live, who we want to be with. Freedom is not holding yourself back – reach out and be there, where you heart lies. When deciding what you want to do in life, be careful and weigh up your options. Then make the bold moves to make your decision a reality

Doubt see obstacles everywhere – Faith sees the way clear!
Doubt sees the darkest night – Faith sees the Light of day.
Doubts dreads to take a step – Faith leads to courage.
Who believes? – The faithful answer “I do, show me the way!“

“GOD IS LOVE” (1 John 4:8) There is no greater love than the love that God has for you. God surely is Love in its truest essence and existence – so pure and divine – so sweet and caring – so true and as a Father to His children

Written by James M Sandbrook.
First Published – 4th f October, 2011.