Courage and Wisdom

A few days ago, someone asked me how they could pray for me in these days. “Courage and wisdom,” I said, without skipping a beat. The two qualities have been on the tip of my tongue because they’re heavy on my heart. Courage and wisdom are what I need Jesus to give me, to give us, in our current troubled-heart situation.

And you can trace their connection to Peter and Thomas, to the two instincts of stubborn resolve and paralyzing uncertainty that we saw in Sunday's sermon.

Stubborn resolve, if you recall, is a kind of I-got-this bravado. It's overconfidence that we’ll always get it right. Paralyzing uncertainty, on the other hand, is a No-way-I-got-this fear. It is under-confidence that we will ever get it right. Both are forms of unbelief because both have fixed their eyes on the self, not on Jesus.

Jesus, though, by his presence — his realness — redeems the goodness of resolve and inevitability of uncertainty. Jesus gives us courage and wisdom.

Courage doesn’t mean the fears disappear, but it means Jesus deepens our resolve by the promise of his nearness. He told us he’d never leave us, and so Christ-granted courage faces hard circumstances with the confidence that he will make good on that word, that he will be with us, upholding us moment by moment.

Wisdom doesn’t mean we over-analyze every step in a way that locks us into inaction. It understands that we’re neither completely oblivious nor always right, and that ultimately God calls us to have faith. He calls us to reasonable faith that holds fast to Jesus as our guide and guard. Jesus is the one who covers our heads in the day of battle and frustrates the desires of the wicked (Psalm 140:6–8). We must believe that.

Courage and wisdom.

We need both, always together. Would you ask the Father to provide them abundantly for us in these days?