At dinner the other night I asked my kiddos, almost 8 years old and 9, what they thought of when I said the word “courage”? We pray for courage all the time, but I wanted to get a grasp of their understanding of what the word means. I loved their answers….and the surprise I realized later.
They both said, initially, that courage was standing up to things and not running away. They are in a public school, and so their thoughts turn to standing up to bullies, or speaking the truth when something is going wrong instead of being quiet.
But what surprised me is that neither one of them said that courage was a lack of fear. As a child, I would think that “fear” and “courage” would be in the same sentence. Instead, when I probed a little further, they both said that you can have courage in life to face the hard things because of the belief that God is on your side, and he will take care of you. So in essence, you don’t NEED to fear, because God is bigger than it all!
YES!!!
I love that both of my kids, at such a young age, understand the reality that God loves them so deeply that He will take care of them, no matter what they face. I love that they can have that kind of courageous faith to believe what the Word of God says, and believe that He is right there with them. This deep seeded strength is what I have wanted for years, as I have prayed over them nightly for courage. I want them to stand strong, no matter what comes in life, knowing that with God on your side, all things are possible. I think they have a good start on this. 🙂
The last thing we discussed was this question that I posed to them: Being that Jesus was fully God AND fully human, did he feel fear before he went to the cross? NO…my kiddos said. When I asked them why, this is what they said: “He was doing what he knew he was destined to do. When you are being who God has made you to be, there is no need to fear. You can be full of courage in ANY situation because God is with you.”
Out of the mouths of babes….
AMEN! 🙂
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