Our trouble is we see all the events of the Bible through the rear-view mirror of hindsight. We know the end of all the stories and the outcome of all the battles. That wasn’t true for the people caught up in them at the time. Take Joshua for example. When God said “be strong and very courageous, for the Lord you God is with you” (Joshua 1) he had every reason to be afraid. Not just a little nervous, but downright scared. At that point he didn’t know what the result would be. Like a footballer before a match the score was as yet undecided.

The nation of Israel was about to cross into the promised land with its population of around a million and the leadership had just been dropped on Joshua with the death of his mentor Moses. Across the river lay hostile forces who would hack with real machetes. On his side was a nation traumatised by Moses’ death and wondering what to do next. It is in this situation that Joshua had to pull himself together and take on the leadership of the nation. The kind of courage he displayed would catalyse a disparate nation into action.

But he would have to do two things in equal measure. Firstly he would have to dig very deep. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that he had a superhuman nerve. If you’ve ever felt scared (of speaking in public for example) Joshua felt just like that and more, so he had to take himself in hand privately (a thing which only he could do) to prevent himself from crumbling publicly. Secondly he had to reach high and place his faith in God alone. When we realise that God is present with us and acting for us in challenging situations our perspective changes – and so did Joshua’s. Leadership is a lonely business in which ones only true friend is God himself and Joshua discovered the hard way that God’s company could be relied on in the heat of personal battles and military ones.

The ability to lead clearly and decisively while at the same time handling your own abject fear is a true mark of leadership and Joshua had learned the art. It had probably been finely honed when he acted as a spy to survey the land he was about to occupy and now the lessons he’d picked up in facing the small fears are going to be played out in facing the massive ones.

John Maxwell (an expert on leadership) observed “What is ironic is that those who don’t have the courage to take risks and those who do, experience the same amount of fear in life”

Courage in the face of fear throws us on to God and gets us to dig deep in a way that develops character and glorifies our Master.

An old saying puts is very succinctly:

“Fear knocked

Faith answered

No one was there.”