I Am Brave (And So Are You)

I don’t often think of myself as a brave person: I prefer to go places and try new things with someone else (namely, my husband). I don’t love change. I don’t even like swimming. I’m happiest getting to sit at home with my loved ones or take a walk out in nature on a lovely day.

But when I was doing my Bible reading the other day, I came across a verse that turned all this on its head. Bravery doesn’t have to mean you swim with the sharks or take off with just the clothes on your back to travel to a far-off land.

No. Bravery is more than that:

“We live by what we believe, not by what we can see. So I say that we have courage.” 2 Corinthians 5:7-8

I’ve heard people quote that verse before, but I’ve never let it sink in, settle into my soul and whisper to it: You are so brave. You are weak, but you are so strong. Strong and brave and everything else I’d never use to describe myself all because of the simple fact that I believe. Because all those other things that we think describe bravery are just actions. But belief, faith, is on the one had so much more than that and yet so much simpler.
It is beautiful in its simplicity. And comforting to this heart of mine that doesn’t often feel very brave.

Yet, I am. Because my belief has taken me incredible places, given me the courage to make incredible choices, made what could have been an ordinary life into something truly, really incredible.

And, yet, though I knew at the time those were all leaps of faith—I wasn’t always quite sure how they would work out, where they would lead to and what would come next—I never felt like I was gambling or putting my future at risk. Because my heart was rooted in that one thing: Belief. And when that is what is the guiding force, it never fails. I never have to worry.

I simply have to be brave and believe.

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