The Cost of Cowardice

"Taking a bribe, letting yourself be bought off, accepting flattery in exchange for some sort of loyalty, is sabotage. Refusing to confront an issue because if you keep quiet you'll get a promotion or be made an elder or keep your job corrupts you deep down. -John Eldridge

"'But" say the...cowards, "We shall be subject to a long and bloody war if we declare independence." On the contrary, I affirm it the only step that can bring the contest to a speedy and happy issue." -Samuel Adams

"For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it. For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul." -Jesus

I lost everything. I lost my ability to think. I lost the ability to receive and give love. I lost my ability to read, to hug my kids, to sleep. At its worst, I had lost my ability to finish off a yawn. I lost my ability to swallow. Gagging on food, jolting while trying to sleep, dropping 20 pounds on the scale in a month. I couldn't read the Bible without it condemning me. The rifle would have to be stored at my folk's place for a year.

There is a cost to cowardice. I have paid it from resources that I didn't even knew I had.

If there is a sin to be repented of in the church right now, it has to be this: we are guilty of cowardice. We have tried to get comfy at tables that Jesus would have flipped. We have been silent when we should have spoke. We have spoke when we should have been silent. Fear has gotten the best of us. My suspicion is that a watching world sees our cowardice better than we do, and they find it repulsive.

I suppose cowardice was the sin that started it all. Life would have been a little different if Adam would have had the rocks to say to Eve, "What the hell are you doing talking to the snake? Put the damned fruit down." That would have been nice, wouldn't of it? If he would have crushed the serpent's head, maybe God wouldn't have had to send His Son to do it?

Instead of a courageous and manly stand, the fruit became God, the animal sweet talked the woman, the woman led the man, and the man became a coward that blamed God for giving him his wife, who was unquestionably the best wife a man could have in every way imaginable. Next thing you know a tree is getting abused in a ridiculous attempt to cover up shame. The rest is history.

Has the world ever become a better place without courage? Have the lives of people ever been enriched without courage? Has a family ever experienced revival without courage?

But courage is rare today, especially where I live. I find myself surrounded by people that try to "not make waves" in the name of faith. My days often include efforts to heal up wounds that I feel could have been prevented if someone just would have had the courage to do something. It's a simple phrase, "If you see something, say something." But we have a way of justifying our lack of action, somehow believing that faith is something you "have" and not something you "do." Faith without works is dead. It doesn't save you, and it doesn't save anyone else.

There is a fire in my heart. I have tried to put it out. Others have tried to put it out. I have tried to tell myself to settle down, to let it go, and convince myself that its not my job. Yet none of it has worked. Apparently my head has to succumb to my heart. The fire is as hot as it has ever been. And I think I'm done trying to put it out. Sometimes you just got to let it burn.