Nougat 2

Can you name some courageous people in the Bible? Noah, Abram, Joseph, Moses, his two moms and his sister Miriam, and Joshua, all come readily to mind. Did any of those make your list? Why/ not? Do you have criteria for courageousness? If so, what are they? Today’s Holy Nougat offers a definition of courageous that includes boldness, being resolute and fearless. Thankfully, it also tells us how to do so.

“So be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid and do not panic before them. For the Lord your God will personally go ahead of you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you.”” ‭‭Deuteronomy‬ ‭31:6‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Did you realize that those words are actually being offered to the Children of Israel, right there in the wilderness? Yes indeed. Moses was passing the leadership mantle over to Joshua as well as bidding them all farewell. And, like many good leaders, that included preparing them for the next steps.

Interesting enough, he used similar words to Joshua a few verses later. And the words were then repeated twice by God to Joshua at the start of Joshua’s ministry in Joshua 1. It makes me wonder if Joshua should have been on the list we compiled earlier, for that’s a lot of pep talk to one person.

But we might need to ponder this concept a bit more, and we may conclude that courage in our area of strength is not quite the same as courage in our blind spots. Joshua was a courageous warrior. He understood strategy, fight tactics and even supporting the one in charge. And, while he might even have thought of doing things differently; Joshua respected the chain of command under Moses.

He also knew the people he inherited. For, he had had to support Moses against their mutinous attitude when they were afraid. Joshua *knew* that leadership offered some challenges. As a warrior, he also had a sense of the threat posed by their enemies. And being the final decision maker was not a task to be taken lightly. He needed the encouragement.

To be fair to the Children of Israel, they must’ve been tired, broken and uncertain about the future. They’d been traveling for close to forty years and still hadn’t reached their destination. Just about every adult who started that journey to freedom had died. Joshua was one of their generation, but he was not Moses. It would have been disconcerting.

But God

Moses words were coming to them from God, Who assured them to stay calm in the presence of danger. For it was God’s plan that they followed, and they knew God was accompanying them. God was the stability from one generation to the next. And in God they could find the courage to endure and eventually overcome.

Being courageous thus involves knowing that God’s in control; following God’s lead and choosing not to panic in the face of danger or uncertainty. All the characters I mentioned earlier qualified, although not in every situation. How about us, would we qualify?

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May all we seek be found in Christ