Many in our Nation today are being careful about what they say or what they do. They are fearful of verbal attacks, threats, violence, or even arrests and imprisonment should their speech and or actions be deemed to be in conflict with those who currently hold the power of authority in our Nation today. In our current age, how does one stand strong, holding fast to our Creator’s truth and morality created in each of our own consciousnesses? Moreover, how does one move beyond developing COURAGE within, to manifesting COURAGE without. To have covert COURAGE is of little benefit to others. One must learn to express overt COURAGE in one’s daily life, if one’s COURAGE is to be an example to others, encouraging COURAGE in others. As it is in most things, this is easier to say than to do. It is easy to tell you what to do, but harder to tell you how to do it. So, we will rely upon the wisdom of others to kindle COURAGE within you. The following excerpts were taken from the Readers Digest, December 8, 2023, by Kelly Kuehn.
“Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen.” Brene Brown
“Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear.” Franklin D. Roosevelt
“Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage you can’t practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage.” Maya Angelou
“The secret to happiness is freedom . . . and the secret to freedom is courage.” Thucydides
“Courage is being scared to death . . . and saddling up anyway.” John Wayne
“You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore.” William Faulkner
“Courage results when one’s convictions are bigger than one’s fears.” Orrin Woodward
“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not absence of fear.” Mark Twain
“The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.” Coco Chanel
“He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.” Muhammad Ali
“The opposite of courage is not cowardice; it is conformity. Even a dead fish can go with the flow.” Jim Hightower
“With enough courage, you can do without a reputation.” Margaret Mitchell
“Courage isn’t having the strength to go on – it is going on when you don’t have strength.” Harper Lee
“One man with courage is a majority.” Thomas Jefferson
“Courage is fear holding on a minute longer.” George S. Patton
“Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others.” Robert Louis Stevenson
“He is a man of courage who does not run away but remains at his post and fights against the enemy.” Socrates
“Courage is like a muscle. We strengthen it buy use.” Ruth Gordon
“Physical bravery is an animal instinct; moral bravery is much higher and truer courage.” Wendell Phillips
“I beg you take courage; the brave soul can mend even disaster.” Catherine the Great
“Courage is just the honesty to recognize your own weakness and then do something about it.” From the MGM+ streaming series “Billy the Kid”.
Prior to the Battle at Trenton that changed the course of the Revolutionary War, patriots fighting for FREEDOM and LIBERTY used enormous amounts of courage. Check out some of the following excerpts from the book, “INDISPENSABLES”, by Patrick K. O’Donnell:
“Much time was spent waiting and freezing that night, on both the Pennsylvania and then the New Jersey side of the river. Fifer John Greenwood wrote, ‘I was with the first that crossed, we had to wait for the rest and so began to pull down the fences and to make fires to warm ourselves, for the storm was increasing rapidly.’ Before midnight, the storm became much worse, and the men began to fear the very real possibility that they could freeze. ‘After a while it rained, hailed, snowed, and froze, and at the same time blew a perfect hurricane; so much so that I perfectly recollect, after putting the rails on to burn, the wind and the fire would cut them in two in a moment, and when I turned my face toward the fire my back would be freezing,’ Greenwood recalled. ‘By turning round and round I kept myself from perishing before the large bonfire.”
Remember all of this took place December 25, 1776.
“With the storm continuing to rage, the nine-mile march to Trenton was nearly as hazardous as the crossing had been. ‘Many of our poor soldiers are quite barefoot and ill-clad,’ wrote one of the officers. ‘Their route was easily traced, as there was a little snow on the ground, which was tinged here and there with blood from the feet of the men who wore broken shoes.’ Greenwood remembered, ‘During the whole night it alternately hailed, rained, snowed, and blew tremendously. I recollect very well that at one time, when we halted on the road, I sat down on the stump of a tree and was so benumbed with cold that I wanted to go to sleep; had I been passed unnoticed I should have frozen to death without knowing it; but as good luck always attended me,[a sergeant] came and, rousing me up, made me walk about.”
They defined COURAGE!
In the Bible book of Ephesians, Chapter 5, the Apostle Paul gave this warning; “Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men, but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil.” In the Old Testament book of Amos, one of the twelve minor prophets of the Hebrew Bible, he said the following: “They hate him who reproves in the gate, and the abhor him who speaks with integrity.” “Therefore, at such a time the prudent person keeps silent [listen for God’s quiet wisdom], for it is an evil time. Seek good and not evil, that you may live; and thus may the Lord God of hosts be with you, just as you have said! Hate evil, love good and establish justice in the gate [the place where court was held].”
It takes COURAGE to reprove the wicked and speak for the truth. Our Creator will reward those who exemplify COURAGE. If we are to fight for and retain our FREEDOM and LIBERTY within our Nation, then we must demonstrate COURAGE in our daily lives by how we act and by what we say. Have you demonstrated your COURAGE of late? Will your COURAGE be witnessed tomorrow?