Prayer for Courage

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Lord, there is something I am afraid to do. You know what it is. I do not need to spell it out for you. You see it perfectly.

The conversation I have been avoiding. The decision I have been postponing. The truth I need to speak. The change I need to make. The risk I need to take. I have been telling myself I am being prudent. Maybe I am sometimes, but mostly I'm just afraid.

The Lord said to Joshua in chapter one, 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.

Be strong and courageous. It was a command, not a suggestion. And the reason was simple. The Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is acting in the presence of God despite the fear.

Lord, give me that kind of courage tonight. Courage to have the conversation I have been avoiding, to say the words that need to be said, even though they will be hard to say and hard to hear. To speak the truth in love, as St. Paul teaches in Ephesians 4. Not the truth weaponized, not the truth withheld, the truth in love.

Courage to set the boundary that should have been set long ago. To say no when I have been saying yes out of fear. To say yes when I have been saying no out of fear. To stop people pleasing and start God pleasing.

Courage to forgive when forgiveness feels like losing. The world tells me forgiveness is for the other person, that they do not deserve it. But forgiveness is for me too. It is the key I turn from the inside of my own prison.

Courage to ask forgiveness when I have wronged someone. To say I am sorry without excuses, without explanations, without softening it to protect my ego. Just, I was wrong. I am sorry. Will you forgive me?

Courage to leave what is killing me, the relationship, the job, the addiction, the lifestyle, even when the unknown on the other side is terrifying. Courage to stay where you have called me, even when it is hard: the marriage that needs more work, the parenting that has no easy answers, the vocation that is testing me. Courage to follow you into the new thing you are calling me toward, to start the project, to send the application, to make the move, to say yes to what scares me because it is from you.

Courage to be different. To live by Christian values in a world that mocks them. To pray when no one else is praying. To be honest when everyone is lying. To love when everyone is choosing self-protection. To hope when everyone is becoming cynical.

Lord, you showed me what courage looks like. You set your face like flint and went to Jerusalem, knowing what waited. You prayed in Gethsemane, sweating blood. But you knelt and said, not my will, but yours be done. You let them lead you away. You did not flinch.

I cannot match that. But I can ask for a small share of that spirit. The same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead is in me, as St. Paul says in Romans 8. So when I face the thing tomorrow that scares me, I am not facing it alone. I am facing it with the spirit of resurrection power.

Tomorrow, when the moment comes, hold me steady. Speak through me. Move through me. Let me look back on this day and say, I did the thing. With your help, I did it.

I am not brave by nature, Lord, but you are the one who makes the timid bold and the fearful free. Be my courage tonight.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.