The Courage To Be

I've borrowed this title from Paul Tillich's deeply insightful study published as a book in 1952 by Yale University Press. Dr. Tillich states that "Joy is the emotional expression of the courageous Yes to one's own true being." He suggests that fear and anxiety are healed by being "taken into a courage to be..."

Honesty requires personal courage and the willingness to accept the truth of reality. Brennan Manning notes that "honesty involves the willingness to face the truth of who we are, regardless of how threatening or unpleasant our perceptions may be." He goes on to say once we accept the gospel of grace we learn to hang in there with ourselves and with God. We learn our mind tricks by experiencing how they defeat us. We begin to recognize our avoidances, acknowledge our lapses and the truth that we cannot handle life well on our own.

Self-confrontation and finding the courage to "be" requires the strength that is available to us in God's relentless love and boundless grace toward us. We must refuse to use failure as an excuse to quit trying!

Without personal honesty, I can too easily construct a virtual image of myself that is quite impressive. The tragedy is that such fabrication of a "false self" tends to open the door to a deadly complacency that replaces delight in God.

It is all too tempting to resist the truth about ourselves. We prefer reassurance about our virtue and value. The church can be particularly susceptible to the need to feel "successful" and "righteous." A preacher said to one of his friends, "We have just had the greatest revival our church has experienced in many years." "How many souls were added to your church membership?" "None. We lost two hundred."

To be alive is to be broken, and to be broken is to stand squarely in the need of God's love and grace. Honesty about our truth keeps us aware of our need. Faith in God's truth brings us alive in the reality that we're sinners saved and healed by God's love and grace!

Jesus calls us to a more holy and perfect life. We cannot achieve this beautiful reality on our own. But where we actually are is the starting place for his love and grace to bring us increasingly into the good life of being more like Christ.