Courage is a virtue that you rarely see these days. Courage is defined as having the mental or moral strength to persevere or withstand danger, fear or difficulties. When I think of courageous people my mind immediately goes to the fire fighters and police officers that ran into the World Trade Centers, when they were hit by terrorists. In the face of danger, and the potential collapse of the building, they showed courage and ran in to save people.
Courage also means to do or stand for something that is difficult. In other words, not compromising in your beliefs.
Back in 2012, I was the vice chairman of the Norwalk Board of Education. We were looking to hire a new superintendent and had just interviewed 10 potential candidates for the position. We narrowed the field down to 3 people and one of them was the Mayor’s choice and he was pressuring us to hire him. The Board of Education is made up of 9 members elected by the city; at that time, 5 were republicans and 4 were democrats which meant that the republicans had the majority. The Mayor, at that time, was a republican and so was I which meant that I had better heed his “advice”.
We had an unofficial vote, behind closed doors, and the mayor was pressuring us to vote for his guy. All the republicans were going along with him and surprisingly so were the democrats because they knew they were outnumbered. But then there was me. I was not comfortable with Mayor’s guy and wanted to hire Dr. Manny Rivera. So the pressure was on as we went around the room and my turn had come. Being the Vice Chairman my vote carried some weight. I decided to stick to my decision and oppose the Mayor on this one because I firmly believed that Dr. Rivera was the right person for the job.
When I told the Mayor I was voting for Dr. Rivera he became very upset with me for breaking ranks. I responded with “you have 8 votes for your guy against 1 no vote so you still win”. Well guess what happened next – the democrats so my courage to stand against him and they all switched their vote. And 1 republican also switched his vote because he didn’t like the Mayor’s guy either. So the vote went 6-3 in favor of Dr. Rivera.
After a few years, it became evident that hiring Dr. Rivera proved to be correct decision as he was able to turn Norwalk Schools around for the better.
There are many things in life that don’t take faith to achieve, but they actually take courage! I like to say it this way that courage is the doing part of faith. It’s stepping out and doing what’s in your heart. Knowing that God has your back when you make the right choices.
In Joshua 1:9 God never tells Joshua to have faith. He tells Joshua to have courage!
If we want to do great things for God, it’s time we rise up with courage.
