Stepping Up

by Dennis Rainey

Courage that overcomes fear comes from convictions, and convictions about life and death come from the truth of Scripture.

A man doesn’t have to understand God’s purposes to be God’s man, if he knows who God is and trusts Him.

“A real man rejects passivity, accepts responsibility, leads courageously, and expects God’s greater reward.”

Initiative is at the heart of manhood.

Male passivity is a disease that robs a man of his purpose while it destroys marriages, ruins families, and spoils legacies. A passive man doesn’t engage; he retreats. He neglects personal responsibility. At its core, passivity is cowardice.

Proverbs 4:10–15 describes a father who protects his son by passing on wisdom, helping him build godly character, and teaching him to reject the lies and temptations of the world. This father is protecting not only his son but the generations to follow as the wisdom he shares gets passed on and on.

One of my favorite passages about children in the Scriptures is found in Psalm 127: “Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one’s youth. How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them” (verses 4–5).

C. S. Lewis had it right when he wrote, “Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.”

Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm. —WINSTON CHURCHILL