So how are your New Year’s resolutions going? You know, those commitments everybody made a few weeks ago that they’re already trying to forget about? My guess is that, if you’re anything like the rest of us, your vision of the future probably isn’t a reality quite yet.

How do I know this? Because life never goes as planned. Just as you are gathering the courage to go on that mission trip, a family member will suddenly take ill and need a caretaker. The very month in which you plan to increase your giving will always be the month that the car breaks down, and spending more time with God is a lot harder when your boss asks you to take on an extra shift.  Life happens, and it usually does so at the most inopportune times.

“But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.”

          -Genesis 50:20

The worst part of it all is that many of us become so discouraged when things don’t go our way that we give up on change altogether. Just because you’re struggling with reading through the Bible in a year is no reason to quit studying the Scriptures, nor is a rocky start to your diet an excuse for another year of unhealthy living. As David Brinkley once said, “A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him.” By giving up in the face of adversity, we’re actually losing out on the opportunity for growth that far surpasses what we could have planned with a pen and paper.

Maybe life has thrown quite a few bricks at you over these last four weeks. Maybe “successful” is the last work you would use to describe the month of January, and you don’t yet see any silver linings or light at the end of the tunnel. If this is you, don’t be discouraged by the obstacles you’ve encountered. Instead, learn to view every hardship as an opportunity for growth and realize that God’s plans for you are far more significant than your own. What you may view only as another brick to dodge, God may see as building material.

“For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”

               -II Timothy 1:7

This Thursday I and my family are going to see Courageous, the new Christian movie by Provident Films. Of course I can’t endorse a movie I’ve not yet seen, but the title and accompanying theme song by Casting Crowns certainly have a punch to them that’s had me thinking lately: God’s people are called to be men and women of courage, overcoming evil rather than being overcome with evil (Romans 12:21).

By courage, of course, I’m not speaking of a total absence of fear; although I think God’s people struggle with this far more often than is really acceptable, courage has been accurately defined “not [as] the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.”* Put another way, even the most courageous of saints are not exempt from being afraid at times. Instead of acting on their fear, however, they act in spite of it and do what they know is right while leaving the results up to God.

“Be ye therefore very courageous to keep and to do all that is written in the book of the law of Moses, that ye turn not aside therefrom to the right hand or to the left;”

               -Joshua 23:6

When king Nebuchadnezzar began to heat his fiery furnace in which to destroy the three Hebrew children (Daniel 3), we can be sure that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were at least a little bit uneasy at what they saw. They had determined in their hearts to follow God no matter the cost, but that didn’t mean they were thrilled with the idea of becoming martyrs. They may have been afraid to some degree, but their courage and not their fear is what controlled their actions on that day. May we all learn to follow in their footsteps, soldiers of the cross and servants of the King.

*Ambrose Redmoon