Small Acts of Courage
From the Series—Courage
September 6, 2002This week’s evotional continues the three-week series on Courage. Feel free to forward it to a friend.
October 31st, 1517 ~ A monk named Martin Luther walks up to the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany and posts a piece of paper on the church doors. His 95 theses attack the practice of indulgences--the selling of forgiveness by the church. Luther was put on trial. He was excommunicated from the church. But that one act of courage had a domino effect--it ignited the Protestant Reformation.
April 18th, 1945 ~ A factory owner named Oskar Schindler has a list of 1097 names manually typed--297 women and 800 men. He rescues them from Nazi Concentration Camps. Schindler lost everything. He died broke. But that one act of courage had a domino effect--a half-century later, there are more than 6,000 descendants of the Schindlerjuden.
December 1st, 1951 ~ A seamstress named Rosa Parks gets on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Segregation laws required black passengers to give up their seat for white passengers. Rosa Parks refused to do it. She was arrested. She lost her job. But that one act of courage had a domino effect--it inspired a citywide boycott and a court battle. Within two years, bus segregation was ruled unconstitutional.
I’m no historian, but let me make a broad, sweeping observation: it’s small acts of courage that change the course of history. Someone takes a risk or takes a stand. Someone makes a courageous decision or courageous sacrifice and it has a domino effect.
Uncommon Courage
Scripture is all about common people with uncommon courage. Three of them are found in Daniel 3. King Nebuchadnezzar builds a ninety foot golden image and commands every Babylonian to bow and worship before it. Three Jewish men named Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego take a stand--literally. They refuse to bow. King Nebuchadnezzar says “If you do not worship it, you will be thrown immediately into a blazing furnace. Then what god will be able to rescue you from my hand?”
These guys could have taken the easy way out. They could have said to themselves, “We’ll bow on the outside but not on the inside.” Or “We’ll cross our fingers before bowing!” They could have found a way to justify bowing. But even with the threat of a fiery furnace, they refuse to bow. That takes courage.
“Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego replied to the king, ‘O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up’.”
Courage is doing what’s right in God’s sight regardless of circumstances or consequences. There comes a time when you have to take a stand.
Take a Stand
In her book, Quiet Strength, Rosa Parks wrote, “Our mistreatment was not right, and I was just tired of it. I knew there was a possibility of being mistreated, but an opportunity was given to me.” She took a stand against racial prejudice.
At the Diet of Worms, Martin Luther was given a chance to recant. Here’s what he said, “My conscience is taken captive by God’s Word, I cannot and will not recant anything. For to act against our conscience is neither safe for us, nor open to us. On this I take my stand. I can do no other. God help me.”
There comes a time when you need to take a stand. You just need to do what’s right in God’s sight. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego say, “We will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”
Defenseless
Daniel 3:16 says, “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego replied to the king, ‘O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter.”
If someone is threatening you or accusing you it’s tough not to defend yourself. But Bruce Barton says, “There are times when nothing a man can say is nearly so powerful as saying nothing. To argue brings him down to the level of those with whom he argues; silence convicts them of their folly; they wish they had not spoken so quickly.”
In Matthew 27, Jesus is standing trial before Pilate. All kinds of false accusations are being hurled at The Truth, but Jesus doesn’t defend himself. Isaiah 53:7 prophesied his silence. “He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.”
I have a theory. Jesus could talk himself out of any situation. He ran verbal circles around the religious leaders every time they tried to trap him in his words. He could have won this argument, but that wasn’t his goal. His goal was to win salvation by going to the cross. In an amazing act of willpower, Jesus kept his mouth closed. He refused to defend himself. Matthew 27:14 says, “Jesus made no reply, not even to a single charge--to the great amazement of the governor.” His silence spoke volumes!
Courage is the willingness to put ourselves into defenseless positions--to confess our sin, to step out in faith, to speak the truth in love. We leave ourselves totally exposed to rejection or failure or even death. But we do it because it’s right in God’s sight.
Two O’clock Courage
Napoleon made a distinction between two kinds of courage. He said there is regular courage and then there is courage of “the two o’clock in the morning variety.” Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego had the latter.
“If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up’.”
They say it so matter-of-factly. There isn’t a whiff of doubt. They have complete confidence in God’s ability. Courage comes down this: how big is your God? If you believe God can do anything then you have nothing to be afraid of. You can just do what’s right in God’s sight.
At the end of Prince Caspian, one of the books in C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia series, there is an interesting exchange. The children haven’t seen Aslan, the the Christ-figure, in quite some time and one of the girls says, “Aslan, you’re bigger.” He says, “That is because you are older, little one.” She says, “Not because you are bigger?” Aslan says, “I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.”
So it is with our relationship with God: the more we grow the bigger God gets! We stop pigeonholing. We stop measuring. We stop bringing God down to our level or putting him into nice, neat little boxes. Psalm 34:3 says, “O magnify the Lord with me, let us exalt his name forever.”
The idol Nebuchadnezzar built was 90 feet high and 9 feet wide. That’s big, but it’s pretty puny compared to a God who is measureless in power and grace and wisdom!
The Rest of the Story
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego take a stand and get thrown into a fiery furnace. Then Daniel 3:24 says, “Nebuchadnezzar leaped to his feet in amazement and asked his advisers, ‘Weren’t there three men that we tied up and threw into the fire’? They replied, ‘Certainly, O king.’ He said, ‘Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods.’
It says they came out and not a hair was singed. They didn’t even smell like smoke! Then Nebuchadnezzar said, “Praise be to the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent his angel and rescued his servants! They trusted in him and defied the king’s command and were willing to give up their lives rather than serve or worship any god except their God. Therefore I decree that the people of any nation or language who say anything against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego be cut into pieces and their houses be turned into piles of rubble, for no other god can save in this way. Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the province of Babylon.” What a way to get promoted!
Counterfactual theory is the branch of history that asks the “what if” questions. What if Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego had taken the easy way out? What if they had just bowed? I’m not sure I can completely answer that question, but here’s what I do know. Their small act of courage changed the course of history. Nebuchadnezzar put his faith in Jehovah. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego got promoted. And the Jewish people were given protected status in the Babylonian kingdom.
Winston Churchill said, “Courage is the first of all human qualities because it is the one that guarantees all the others.” It’s small acts of courage that change the course of history.
I pray that we’d have the courage to share our faith, the courage to speak the truth in love, the courage to confess, the courage to believe the impossible, the courage to step out in faith, the courage to put ourselves in defenseless positions, the courage to do what’s right in God’s sight, the courage to take a stand.