This coming Sunday’s Sunday School lesson is about courage. We don’t normally think about courage as a form of love because we get lost in the Cowardly Lion’s definition of courage, which is all about the superficial trappings of bravery, rather than the original meaning. Courage comes from the Latin word ‘cor’ and the French word ‘cour’ for heart, it means to have or take heart. So yes, courage does imply bravery in the face of grave personal danger. But just like the Cowardly Lion learned, a person can be timid and not at all brave on their own behalf, but they can be courageous doing something for someone or something else. That is how courage ends up in Love God, Neighbor, Enemy.
There are several good examples of courageous people in the Bible – Moses, a guy with a stutter, boldly approached Pharoah, arguably the most powerful human on the planet at that time and demanded that Pharoah, “Let my people go” …and he did! There’s Rahab, a prostitute with no reason to expect or believe the Israelite spies who said they would protect her and her family when God helped them bring the walls of Jericho down, but she did. And my all-time favorite, Ananias who took care of Saul, basically his sworn enemy, because God told him to.
And there are several great children’s books that beautifully illustrate courage, here are two I particularly like:
- Spaghetti in a Hot Dog Bun, Maria Dismondy is one I just found, here’s a link to the read aloud: https://youtu.be/3cXWrUJlOK8
- The Cats in Krasinski Square, Karen Hesse, I’ve mentioned before can be read here: https://youtu.be/ApJjnTaMqOI
Carolyn Hayes
Director of Children and Young Families
