A Help To Courage - Charles H Spurgeon

Courage maintains itself by its ardent action, as some birds rest on the wing. There is an energy about agility that will often give a man a fortitude which otherwise he might not have possessed. We can picture the gallant regiment at Balaclava riding into the valley of death at a dashing gallop, but we could scarcely imagine their meaning slowly up to the guns, coolly calculating all the deadly odds of the adventure. There is much in our obeying as our Lord did, ” straightway.” When the Lord gives his servants grace to follow out their convictions as soon as they feel them, then they act courageously. First thoughts are best in the service of God, they are like Gideon’s men that lapped. Second thoughts come up timorously and limpingly, and incite us to make provision for the flesh, they are like those men whom Gideon discarded because they went down on their knees to drink, they took things too leisurely to be fit for the Lord’s battles.