The Beauty of Strength and Courage

For they were all trying to intimidate us, saying, “They will drop their hands from the work, and it will never be finished.” But now, my God, strengthen my hands.

Nehemiah 6:9

In 2021 my son and I ran a Tough Mudder. If you are not familiar with this race, it is basically a race through a whole lot of gooey, sticky mud. The object is to finish a 10-mile run and 20 obstacles as fast as you can. One of the encouraging sentences on their website, https://toughmudder.com/ is they are “A community of normal individuals with an abnormal commitment to overcoming challenge.” Now, I naturally would not have categorized myself as having this type of commitment, but there have been so many times in my life I knew I was able to overcome a challenge by hanging onto Christ with this same assurance.

Since being diagnosed with cancer twice and now dealing with an auto-immune disorder, I have been dedicating myself to being very strong. The first time I ran the Mudder I wasn’t able to complete all the obstacles. I just didn’t have the strength, but I was able to complete the event. With the help of my son, who is quite strong, I vaulted over logs, paddled backwards under a fence which was ever encroaching on my face as the puddle got more and more shallow, and leapt into ice-cold water, to dive under a net and out the other side. But the only reason I was able to complete the tasks was because I had a strong hand there for support.

Often times as we face challenges in our lives, we need the ability to get up and continue on even though we may not be sure how we are going to. This is where strength and courage comes in and they need to rise from the depths of our souls. My pastor, Kile Baker, says, “danger is where courage gets up to live”. What a great statement to picture when we are feeling at our lowest. At the same time, he shared, “comfort is where courage lies down to die.

            Nehemiah went to the Lord over and over again as he was leading his people to rebuild the wall in Jerusalem, to pray for strength for himself and for the people working on the wall. They were faced with just about every danger and obstacle one could think of and could not do any of it without the strength and strong hand of the living God. They could either get up and live or lie down and die.

 I can just picture the scene in the Jerusalem home. Mom wakes up only to look out and see the piles of dust and brick. She sighs as she puts on a fire and begins waking up the household. Each child crying when they realize the day will be filled, like every other day, with dusty pails full of fine silt needing to be emptied outside the wall. Dad trudges around the room murmuring about how not everyone is putting in effort and he is worried about the enemy as he picks up his sword and trowel. No one wanting to face the day as their strength and courage wains.

My hope, in this scene, is they, too, went to the Lord in prayer asking for strength for their hand, hearts, and minds. They could have just sat down and made themselves comfortable but they certainly would have died. No time for comfort when life’s enemies and struggles are staring you in the face.

When you are on chemo number six of 12, it is hard to find comfort for sure. Lying down seems more comforting. It would be nice to be able to pass on injection number seven because it’s easier and we’re tired. But we see the danger in the decision so our courage gets up another day and moves forward, bravely jutting out our arm for the needle to be inserted.

There is no time for a soothing spa day when you are faced with the loss of a job due to a government shutdown. Our courage needs to get up and stand taller than Atlas because we are holding the world of our family together. Our courage and strength need to conquer the situation we are facing at this time and only with the help of God, although a good whirlpool might help too.

When we are battling spiritual warfare or facing financial struggles; when we are wrangling with stubborn teenagers or combating sickness in our bodies it is through our heavenly Father that we can expect to have the strength to fight. We certainly cannot do any of it alone. Nehemiah prayed for God to strengthen his hand and through Him alone, and by our faith, we can derive the grace to silence our fears and strengthen us. Nehemiah's prayer is an act of faith, invoking God's power to overcome human weakness. And it needs to be ours too.

My brother is facing an unbelievable challenge; the possible amputation of his foot. After too many surgeries to count in about two years’ time, he is now considering amputation if a final surgery is not successful. Yet, this week he called me to inform me he and I were going to complete a Tough Mudder together. In his words, “whether with one foot or two”. The danger is forcing his courage to get up and live.

Nehemiah's prayer asking God to strengthen his hand is coupled with action. He doesn't just pray for strength but continues the work, showing that faith must be accompanied by action. My brother’s faith in God and his constant prayer shows he will win this fight and run his Tough Mudder. Your prayer, courage, faith, and strength will be rewarded. In God’s time He will bring you through the struggle and show you the smooth path ahead.

Nehemiah's prayer is an act of faith, invoking God's power to overcome human weakness. Our lives matter to God and through His strength, we can build up our walls and have the courage to fight the battles we face.

The New International Version of Nehemiah 6:9 reads, “So I continued the work with even greater determination.” When was the last time you asked God to give you the strength to get up and continue your work with greater determination? Do you pray for yourself in this way? Do you go to God and pray for yourself at all? Admittedly this is something I have to work on because it seems selfish, but the more I reach out to Him and ask for strength and courage, the results become more and more obvious and praiseworthy.

Go to Him today. Ask Him to strengthen your hand in the battle you are facing right now, then, in faith, wait expectedly for the strength and courage to conquer the enemy, the wall, and the challenge you are facing.