Cowardly Lion: Courage! What makes a king out of a slave? Courage! What makes the flag on the mast to wave? Courage! What makes the elephant charge his tusk in the misty mist, or the dusky dusk? What makes the muskrat guard his musk? Courage! What makes the sphinx the seventh wonder? Courage! What makes the dawn come up like thunder? Courage! What makes the Hottentot so hot? What puts the “ape” in apricot? What have they got that I ain’t got?
Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tin Woodsman: Courage!
Cowardly Lion: You can say that again! Huh?

Today I did something brave. I applied for a job I really, really want. It’s a job that would be demanding, sometimes difficult, and very, very challenging. It seems too much to hope for, that I would get a job like this one; but the bottom line is, I really think it’s something I CAN DO.

Why are we so afraid to do the things we really want to? I’m not talking about let’s all run wild in the streets and eat nothing but candy (a fond dream of childhood). I’m talking about the wise, well-thought-out, desires of your heart kinds of things. If you want to write a letter to the President, or audition for the school play, or take on a special project at work, or volunteer for a literacy program, or donate to a charity, etc., etc., then why don’t you?

Life is full of things we HAVE TO do. We have to work and feed ourselves and our families somehow. So many times, though, we seem to settle for the HAVE-TOs and ignore the WANT-TOs. The result is that we remain alive without really living. The result is that we might get ahead financially, but our hearts are left behind.

Sometimes the only remedy is to do something very hard and very brave to break us out of our little brittle, boring, eggshell of a world. When we are finally able to work up the courage to do these very hard and brave things, we are reborn and the world is new to us. After all, once you’ve done what you thought was impossible, even if you’ve been unsuccessful, other things seem much less daunting. After the first brave thing, who’s to say, there won’t be another, and another, and another? (And there will be.)

We don’t have to do this all alone, of course. God is a big fan of the little guy. He loves situations that seem hopeless, and people that are overlooked. (Remember King David as a boy?) The tougher the situation, and the lowlier the person, the greater is the triumph when God has helped us to plant our flag on the mountain top! Just remember that the next time you are facing a giant that might as well be a mountain or a whole universe of giants lined up against you. The road that God has laid out for you runs THROUGH those mountains, not back the other way!

 Psalm 121

¹ I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
    where does my help come from?
² My help comes from the Lord,
    the Maker of heaven and earth.

³ He will not let your foot slip—
    he who watches over you will not slumber;
⁴ indeed, he who watches over Israel
    will neither slumber nor sleep.

⁵ The Lord watches over you—
    the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
⁶ the sun will not harm you by day,
    nor the moon by night.

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