Moral Courage

Our Pastor just finished up a series on moral courage, defined as not only knowing the right thing to do, but doing it. This kind of courage will always mean facing a death of some sort, though not necessarily of the physical type, and it always has as its power source a deep connection to God. (How'd I do, Pastor? See, I was listening!!)

Today he focused on Daniel. From what we know of Daniel, he always made the right decisions--and most of those decisions took more than a little chutzpah. King Nebuchadnezzar wasn't exactly known for his tolerance and had just given the command to execute all the wise men (Daniel included) in the country because no one could tell him what his dream meant. Who-eeeee! What a guy. And then here comes Daniel who "spoke to him with wisdom and tact," and who prayed like crazy and received from God the interpretation of the the dream (a dream that didn't exactly bode well for the old king), which he then told to the King, who halted the execution and fell at Daniel's feet and placed him as ruler over the entire province of Babylon. Wow.

But what we have to remember is that moral courage doesn't always have grand endings. Sometimes we do the right thing and we feel like a failure. Occasionally that's because we get ahead of God, or what we think is the right thing just isn't. There are times though, when it IS the right thing, and the end just seems so wrong--the "death"  of whatever it was weighing heavy on our soul.

So I encourage us all today, as I was encouraged, to stand for Truth in a culture that embraces relativity. Think of someone in your life who made a difference by being courageous and thank them for it, and most of all, be thankful for the courage it took to face the world as a baby and then to die for those who would be your murderers.