What Is Courage? Timeless Lessons from St. Paul and Churchill

What is courage? We forget the simplest lessons, yet they surround us – reminders to keep us on track, restore us to our better selves. Courage involves self-awareness, strength, faith, and love.

At the outset, St. Paul’s words – I love St. Paul –  flood back. In 1 Corinthians 13, he offers how to address challenges, implores those who might do harm to others not to do so – “be strong.”

“Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong. Do everything in love.” Hard to do, but is this not what we should aspire to in a time of moral disorientation, leftist violence, ideological tribalism? Be “on guard,” “firm in faith,” “courageous,” “strong” with “love”?

The truth is we all have “character” and “courage”…until needed. Only then, in that moment, do we truly understand ourselves. We see whether we possess the courage to stand, be counted.

Winston Churchill, closer to our times, had something to say about “courage.” He was a combat veteran, POW who escaped, leader who went into the trenches of WWI after losing his political job leading the Navy. He knew what he spoke, and he led from hard-bitten experience.

Three of his most powerful observations on “courage,” based on his military service, leadership through WWII as Great Britain’s prime minister, and serving elsewhere, should still work for us.

First: Courage is what undergirds everything. We either have it, or we do not; that is a decision in acts big and small, daily and enormous. Wrote Churchill: “Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities, because it is the quality which guarantees all others.” Simple, and true.

Second: In The Gathering Storm, Churchill writes: “In War: Resolution. In Defeat: Defiance. In Victory: Magnanimity. In Peace: Goodwill.” Later, he adds: “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”

These lessons work in combat and in daily life. He counsels: “Fear is a reaction; courage is a decision.” In other words, choose courage, embrace stamina, resolve and resilience.

Third: Perhaps most useful in the day-to-day world of barbs, trite bites, and temptations to depart from our better nature: “Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.” How often that kind of courage is needed!

Finally, in John 14:1, we hear comforting words from Jesus Christ on courage. Courage is standing firm in one’s convictions, content in one’s well-grounded faith, drawing strength from love, not retreating from evil.  “Let not your heart be troubled.”

So, what is courage? It has nothing to do with ego, self, or settling scores; it has to do with summoning the best from deep within, trusting strength drawn from faith and love.