Every Thanksgiving my family goes around the table, each person saying one thing that he or she is grateful for. Some years ago, I decided that each year I would name a quality or an ideal—something that I wanted to develop more or understand greater. It slowly took the place of a New Year's resolution as each year I would focus on that one thing. Last year was relationships. This year is courage.
As the New Year rolled around, I found myself still attempting to define the kind of courage I want to develop. Then, just yesterday, I was having lunch with a friend, and the answers fell together all at once. She, like me, has an interest in linguistics, and so I was telling her about some of the Mandarin characters and how their meaning can sometimes be derived from their components. I told her two of my favorites are the characters for busy and forget. The character for busy is made up of the components loose and heart. Forget is composed of heart and flee. So to be busy is to loose heart and to forget is to have something flee your heart.
"What does the heart symbolize?" my friend asked.
I hadn't really thought about that. I'd assumed that the heart means the same to those in China as it does to us, but I had to tell her I wasn't sure.
"I ask," she said, "because I once read something about the various meanings of heart. At one time it meant courage. So to learn with the heart was to learn with courage."
I had to really think about that. What does it mean to learn with courage?
For me it seemed to hint at a passion, perseverance, and ambition.
So often I have talked with people who say that they do not know what they want to do or study. But then they mention something—or I may suggest it to them—and their eyes light up. "Oh that would be so fun!" they say.
"So what's keeping you?" I ask.
"Well," they often reply, "what if I'm not good enough or smart enough, or what if it's too hard, or what if I get so far and then decide I don't like it after all?"
Courage is putting those fears and doubts aside.
But there's another aspect of courage that is perhaps deeper.
Yesterday morning I was listening to a talk given by one of the general authorities of our church. The talk was entitled "Therefore They Hushed Their Fears." I found in it a paradoxical definition of courage which definition is, I believe, the best I have found. That is, courage is fear.
Now allow me to explain.
I do not mean the kind of distressing fear that arrises due to impending danger, uncertainty, or pain, or through experiences that are unexpected, sometimes sudden, and likely to result in an undesired outcome. I do not mean the kind of fear that strikes when you go to take a test you aren't ready for, walk down a dark ally alone, or that sizzles constantly, slowly heating the waters of indecision and doubt.
There is a different kind of fear, and it is to this fear that I am referring when I say that courage is fear. The fear to which I refer is what is referred to in scripture as "fear of the Lord" or "Godly fear." Unlike worldly fear that creates alarm and anxiety, Godly fear is a source of peace, assurance, and confidence. It encompasses a deep feeling of reverence, respect, and awe for the Lord. Godly fear dispels mortal fear. And is not the absence of mortal fear the very substance of courage?
As we fear God, reverence, and trust Him, we love him more completely, and "perfect love casteth out all fear."
And so our fear of God results in love, and love brings courage, which brings us back to what my friend had so wisely alluded to: courage comes from the heart.
As I focus this year on courage, I realize that the foundation of courage is to love more deeply, to serve others, to pursue hard things, and, ultimately, to trust in the Lord.
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart . . . and He will direct your paths." (Psalms 3:5-6)
May your year, too, be one that is filled with courage.
Candidly,
Cookie
