Courage that brings God's victory
Courage and victory
Short reflections to be still with, drawn from Bible passages in Judges 4:18, Acts 9:3-4, Joshua 6:20 and John 19:17.
☀ Morning moment
Jael went out to meet Sisera, and said to him, “Turn in, my lord, turn in to me; don’t be afraid.” He came in to her into the tent, and she covered him with a rug.
Judges 4:18
Turn aside, turn aside. The words come twice, almost before Sisera can answer. In the ancient world a tent belonged to the woman who ran it, and that doubled call was the recognized voice of hospitality, the formal welcome that promised safety under a roof made of goat hair and rope. Sisera heard exactly what he expected to hear.
What strikes me is not the violence that follows, but the moment before it. Barak had hesitated on the battlefield. Jael did not hesitate in her tent. She had no sword, no army, only what was already lying near her hand: a tent peg and a hammer, ordinary pegs used every morning to anchor her own home against the wind.
God did not wait for Jael to be equipped. He used what she already held. That is worth carrying into a Wednesday that looks like nothing special: no clear calling, no dramatic battle, just the tools already on your desk, your phone, your own two hands.
You do not need better equipment to be useful today. You need to use what is already within reach, at the right moment, without waiting for someone braver to go first.
Today
Before you check anything else this morning, pick one ordinary object already in your hand, your phone, your keys, a pen, and use it right now to do one thing you have been putting off.
✦ Lunch moment
As he traveled, he got close to Damascus, and suddenly a light from the sky shone around him. He fell on the earth, and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”
Acts 9:3-4
Your inbox just pinged again, the third request before you have even finished chewing your sandwich. You keep moving because that is what the middle of the day demands. Saul was moving too, on a specific road, with letters in His hand authorizing him to arrest followers of Jesus in Damascus. He was not drifting, he was certain, armed with purpose and paperwork.
Then a light stopped him cold. Not a thought, not a gradual change of heart, a light from the sky at midday bright enough to knock a determined man to the ground. And a voice that did something strange: it did not say 'why do you persecute my followers', but 'why do you persecute me'. Jesus so identifies with His people that an attack on them lands on Him.
That single sentence rearranged everything Saul thought he knew. The man who breathed threats became the one who would carry this same name to kings and nations. One road, one light, one question, and a persecutor turns into a preacher.
You may not expect a light today. But the question still lands: who have you quietly written off, judged, or opposed, thinking you were right to do so? Jesus may be closer to them than you assumed.
Today
Before your next task, stop for one minute. Write down the name of someone you have judged this week, and say quietly, 'Lord, show me what I am missing.'
◐ Afternoon moment
So the people shouted and the priests blew the trumpets. When the people heard the sound of the trumpet, the people shouted with a great shout, and the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight in front of him, and they took the city.
Joshua 6:20
A farmer inside those walls that morning ground his grain as he had every day, the smell of baking bread drifting over streets that had stood for thousands of years before anyone had heard of the name Israel. Jericho was already ancient when Joshua's army camped outside it, built beside a spring that still runs today, an oasis that made it the first gate into the whole land. People had lived and died behind those walls for generations.
For six days there was only marching. No speeches, no battle cry, just feet on dust and the thin sound of rams' horns circling a city that must have watched in confused silence from its ramparts. Then, on the seventh day, after seven circles, the shout, and stone that had stood for centuries came down in moments.
It is hard to sit easily with what follows that shout. A whole city, lives inside those walls, swept away in an instant of obedience we are not asked to explain away. The text does not soften it, and neither should we pretend it does not unsettle.
What stays with me is the silence before the shout, days of walking with no evidence that anything was about to change, only a command to keep circling what looked immovable.
Today
Name one wall in your life that feels as solid as Jericho's, a habit, a grudge, a fear you have stopped expecting to move. Write it on paper today, fold it, and put it somewhere you will see it tomorrow, without demanding yet that it fall.
☾ Evening moment
He went out, bearing his cross, to the place called “The Place of a Skull”, which is called in Hebrew, “Golgotha”,
John 19:17
A bare hill at the edge of a city does not need much to earn a name. If the rock is cracked and hollowed just right, if the evening light falls across it and throws two dark pits and a ridge, people walking past will call it what they see. Not something lovely. Not something hidden behind soft words. They will call it a skull.
John does not let the place keep its ordinary name. He tells us the Aramaic word straight, Golgotha, and then translates it for readers who would not otherwise understand: the Place of a Skull. It was likely a known execution ground, set where travelers coming and going from the city could not avoid seeing it. The name was not poetry. It was a plain, ugly description of a plain, ugly place.
The gospel could have dressed this up. It does not. It names the ground exactly as it was, and lets Jesus be crucified there, under that name, in full view of the road.
At the end of a day you may be carrying things you have quietly renamed to make them easier to hold, a failure called a misunderstanding, a fear called tiredness. Golgotha says the truth can be named plainly and still be carried through, not around.
Today
Before you turn off the light tonight, write the plain, honest name for the hardest part of your day on a small piece of paper. Say it out loud once, then fold the paper and set it down, giving God the thing by its true name.
Read these passages in the World English Bible (WEB)
Tap a passage to read the full text right here.
18Jael went out to meet Sisera, and said to him, “Turn in, my lord, turn in to me; don’t be afraid.” He came in to her into the tent, and she covered him with a rug.
3As he traveled, he got close to Damascus, and suddenly a light from the sky shone around him.
4He fell on the earth, and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”
20So the people shouted and the priests blew the trumpets. When the people heard the sound of the trumpet, the people shouted with a great shout, and the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight in front of him, and they took the city.
17He went out, bearing his cross, to the place called “The Place of a Skull”, which is called in Hebrew, “Golgotha”,
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