Yesterday in bible study we talked briefly about being
fearless. In our delicious mixture of
women we have some who have been in jail, and some who have visited there and even
a few who have never been anywhere more contentious than a difficult PTA
meeting. God loves to arrange us in
these interesting groups then sit back and see what we do with each other.
In this case we just love each other up one side and down
the other.
Being fearless doesn’t mean we won’t make mistakes or even
guarantee that we will learn and not make the same stupid mistakes again. I think it means we will not dissolve into a
puddle of paralysis and self-pity. It
means you can be brave and honest. It
means you can pick yourself up and move on. Being fearless means you can bounce
back in confidence.
The last week held a lot of political stuff that guaranteed
somebody would be happy while somebody else would be unhappy. The trick is for the happy people to stop short
of being obnoxious about their happiness and help the unhappy people out of
their pit of paralysis of unhappiness.
Because, hopefully, we all have people we love dearly on both sides of
the issues. And if we don’t—if we don’t,
people: our circle of friends is probably a little too limited, too much alike,
too bland, and we might want to look for some new friends, not to replace the
others but to add zest to our lives.
I have a friend who loves to debate issues. He told me early in our friendship that he loves
it when someone can change his opinion.
It makes conversation with him less combative, more like a game we play
with each other.
Being fearless doesn’t always mean you enter battle and
fight hard then win the battle. It also
means entering the battle, fight hard, then find out you are wrong, then admit
it, and back down. It can also mean
entering the battle, fight hard, finding you have hurt someone you didn’t mean to
hurt, apologize, leave the battle and move on. Being fearless can mean not
being afraid to speak the truth when it is you who are wrong.
Being fearless simply means not being afraid of the truth no
matter what the truth is.
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