Article January 2, 2017 Issue

The courage to keep on

Curtis Wahlberg

A lack of progress or of healing can be very discouraging. I’ve certainly felt such discouragement. Yet, I have also found that the story doesn’t end there. Our hearts can always open wider toward God to receive more of His infinite good for us. To hear more of His direction and to experience certain progress. For sure, the infinite nature of His goodness makes progress inevitable. Consequently, even when the road of human life is not easy, we’ve got good reason to work on gaining the courage to face challenges, persist in prayer, and trust that evidence of good and healing will follow.

Such courage is essential. And when courage is seen as consisting of God-given qualities mentioned in the Bible, such as hope, faith, and longsuffering, this spiritual courage looks more and more like something that truly should be at the heart of our daily prayers. St. Paul explains why. He wrote, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law” (Galatians 5:22, 23). Cultivating such fruits in our thoughts and lives, we find that it no longer feels as if life is working against us. Because “against such there is no law”!

We’re standing against any evil, or false, material consciousness, which is always baseless and unreal.