Courage.  In my entire life, I have never heard a sermon preached on courage.  And yet, exhortations to courage permeate the psalms.  Why don’t we ever preach about it?  I believe that we tend to think of courage in human terms—as the confidence and the mental muscle that we can muster from our own strength when faced with adversity.  But I believe that biblical courage is different.  Biblical courage seems often to be connected with waiting upon the Lord for what He will provide, bolstered by a confidence of what we have seen Him do in the past.  When we experience God’s providence in our lives, it is always a reassuring and faith-building exercise.  We come away from it rejoicing, our strength redoubled, and our confidence in our Creator greatly increased.  But in the wake of these exultations, we can often begin to confuse providence with permanence, thinking that when God has worked in a particularly wonderful way, His providence will never change.  Interestingly, change is essential to growth, and it is our growth that is of top priority to the Holy Spirit.  We can become addicted to the comfort of providence, but without the discomfort of change, we simply will not grow.

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