Let Your Courage Be the Master of Your Fear

In January, I decided to start reading the Bible.  Every day. And it’s been an amazing experience, and I will be sharing some takeaways from my reading here every Saturday.

Growing up, most kids have a favorite superhero they are drawn to. For me, it was also Batman and Spiderman. I know, a lot of kids love Superman.  Who doesn’t want to fly and have super strength?

But for me, it was always Spidey and The Dark Knight. And for the same reason; I could relate to them.

First, you had mild-mannered Peter Parker. The nerd in school that got bullied, till one day he was exposed to a radioactive spider and developed the ability to climb walls like a spider and had super-human strength. Ok, I couldn’t relate to any of that, but he also was able to use his brain and create web-shooters and the super strong and sticky substance that would become his signature webbing.

Then look at Batman. He had NO super-powers, unless you count being obsessive complusive as a superpower. He was a ‘normal’ guy that due to the murder of his parents, became obsessed with fighting crime. So he trained relentlessly. He became a master of hand to hand combat. He developed his detective skills till he was on par with the best sleuths in the world. Yeah, he was insanely rich and could buy any toy he wanted.  But the point was, in theory….anyone could be Batman.

That made him relatable. Superman could fly around the world at the speed of light.  That was cool, but made him completely unrelatable to me. But Batman, Batman showed what was possible.  Probably? No, but possible.  And that made him appealing.

I’ve always been drawn to the idea of reframing a negative as a positive.  Or finding potential in a place that doesn’t seem likely. It’s one of the reasons why I wanted to write Think Like a Rock Star, I wanted to help businesses think differently about their customers. Don’t think of them as a burden or just a number. Understand that your customers can be, the best drivers of your business. You just have to tap into and release their potential.  Which starts by understanding that this potential exists.

“So Mack, what in the blessed moon does this have to do with the Bible???”

Glad you asked.

Last week I wrote about how the Bible encourages faith from Christians as a way to destroy worry. I think that for many of us, worry and a fear of taking risks can go hand in hand. For years I would tell others “I need to know that when I do THIS, that THIS will happen. When I find that, I can devote all my energy into THIS in order to get THAT.”

I finally realized that was just a fancy way of saying “I don’t like to take risks”.

When I started reading the Bible, I believed that God would be in line with this thinking. I assumed that the Bible would teach that we shouldn’t take risks, that we should hand the problem over to God and let Him take the risks for us.

Instead, the Bible teaches the opposite. It repeatedly says that Christians should live courageously, and view doing so as a tribute to God:

Joshua 1: 9 : “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

Additionally, I found a passage in I believe one of the letters Paul wrote to one of the churches (I am kicking myself for not marking it because now I can’t find the exact verses), but he was imploring the people of this church to be courageous. He went on to say that as Christians, we should live courageously, so that our behavior can be an example for others to follow.

In my mind, this has totally reframed risk-taking for me. Before, I viewed being risk adverse as being smart.  You can’t lose what you don’t put on the table.

But in God’s eyes, taking risks is a sign of trust. And in much the same way that worry and faith cannot exist in the same space, I guess you could say that fear and courage cannot exist in the same space either. Or at least, courage will be the master of fear.

God doesn’t want us to be fearful because fearful behavior is distrustful behavior.  He wants us to take risks, because that shows that we trust that God will give us the wisdom to choose the right path and then we need to have the faith to walk it.

I wanted to say thank you SO much for the positive reaction to last week’s post on Your Faith is a Thief. I received positive comments here and in private and even on social media. I’m very happy to see that. I know that posts about the Bible on a blog devoted to marketing and business isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I have been thrilled with the response the first post has gotten. Thank you so much, if you enjoy these posts where I share what I am learning from reading the Bible, please check back here every Saturday for a new one!