Bravery by Eldredge

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Bravery
11/15/2007

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Warriors are strong (or valiant), the word of God lives in them, and they have overcome the Evil One. That’s good. To cultivate this in a young man (and in ourselves as older men), it might help to think along three lines: Bravery, Conviction, and an Epic Story.

Winston Churchill believed that courage was the foremost of all virtues, because he saw that all other virtues depend on it. It takes courage to love, because we all know loving means you will be hurt. Repeatedly. It takes courage to have faith, because we all know that your faith will be sorely tested. It takes courage to be honest, and so on. there are several types of bravery—physical, emotional, and spiritual.

Read any biographical account of battlefield heroes, or heroes of any kind, and what stands out is their physical bravery. Hal Moore as the first to step on, and the last to step off, the field in the Ia Drang Valley in Vietnam. The firemen who ran up the stairs of the World Trade Center while everyone else was running down. Physical bravery is cultivated in great part by adventure, and sports, by intentionally putting yourself in dangerous situations. Emotional bravery is developed in most cases of physical bravery, for he will have to master fear, but it is also formed when a young man takes risks in relationships. It might mean risking embarrassment by making a speech in front of a class. It might mean risking rejection by making a new friend, or confronting a good friend on some issue. It will require him to leave a party when the kids start doing things they shouldn’t be doing. He will need emotional bravery in large measure when he enters into marriage, for Adam’s paralysis seizes many a man when he finds himself in the mysterious interior of a woman’s soul.

The important thing in cultivating emotional bravery is helping the boy learn not to quit, teaching him to rise above setbacks and heartbreaks. Spiritual bravery is cultivated when we take risks of faith. This is the greatest bravery, as far as I’m concerned. Think of the many martyrs, like Polycarp going to his execution. He had been warned in a vision that he would be burned at the stake, but he would not let fear seize him. Refusing to confess Caesar as Lord, the old saint went to his death willingly, even to the point of telling his tormentors it would not be necessary to nail him to the stake, that he would remain there by the grace of God. For he heard a voice from heaven say, “Play the man,” and play the man he did.

(The Way of The Wild Heart , 162, 163)

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From The Ransomed Heart, by John Eldredge, reading 319
Ransomed Heart Ministries www.ransomedheart.com