Priest, Prophet & King
Continuing the series on Sloth let us take a moment to look at another way to combat this sinful behavior. Let’s talk about courage.
“Lord, your Son was THE most courageous man. He showed us how to face hate, anger, jealousy, envy, and ignorance with love, kindness, peace, and joy, going against the plan of the evil one that seeks to sow division, distrust, misinformation, and lies. Joseph is a model for how we are to be courageous in how we follow Jesus through suffering, hardship, and the unknown. Pour your blessings upon us all with a healthy dose of courage on top. Never allow us to shrink from doing your will and aid us in our journey to face all adversity without wavering or compromise, but rather with an abundance of Christ’s love and compassion. Amen”
As I considered men that need to have courage, I thought of firefighters, soldiers, police officers, missionaries and priests, prophets and kings or leaders. You know people that act decisively and commandingly without total concern for your own welfare, but for others. Men of honor. Brave men that know that sacrifice is part of the job. These are men alive and aware of what is right and wrong, what is true or false, and what builds others up. They are prudent, firm, stable, and willing to undergo trials for the greater good.
If we consider Joseph as courageous, as a priest, prophet, and king then he would’ve been the king to the King of Kings, priest to the great High Priest, and prophet, or a teacher to the great Teacher.
In our upside-down world, we know that the cross was meant to be the most dishonorable, humiliating, and torturous way to suffer and yet, Christ flips this into the greatest glorification of God. Love takes courage. It takes more courage to sacrifice yourself and your desires than it does to manipulate others and circumstances so you never need to have the courage or be inconvenienced.
It is easy to get discouraged which is a characteristic of sloth that leads to people giving up. It can paralyze you or cause you to get defensive or even collapse inward leading o self-pity and self-doubt. All negative traits of sloth.
Like Joseph, we cannot be overly concerned with how others view or think of us. We have to be willing to take care of the vulnerable, the overlooked, ignored, and/or abused.
To be a man of true courage you must love your creator and Master. He must be at the center of your life and project outward from you. Part of being true sons of the Father is cultivating a high and generous loyalty to the person of Christ.
How often do we complain? Complaining is rarely if ever a good response to anything. Courageous men don’t complain. Joseph never complained. Jesus never complained. They take hardships, whether chosen or inflicted upon them, as part of Christ’s training in warfare.
They act to change a situation for good, or they quietly allow themselves to bear the discomfort. Grousing, whining, complaining: this is the behavior of a spoiled child, not a man of Christ. A complaining spirit weakens our inner resolve—our courage.
Make an examination of your comfortable habits: food, sleep, clothing, or lifestyle—and determine to be courageous in keeping yourself free from allowing them to gain a hold on you. Abstinence and self-denial is the practice that brings this courageous freedom under the grace and help of God.
“Lord, help us to be men that are willing to lay down our desires, our wants, and needs in order to put others’ comfort before our own. Make us like Jesus and Joseph, bold, courageous men that do not complain, but rather have a Holy Indifference to the creature comforts of this world, neither denying them when they are blessed nor seeking them in a disordered way when they are lacking. Make us heroic, valiant men and remove from us any cowardice or spirit of timidity. We praise and honor you for all you have done and will do, the blessings and the hardships for we know that there is goodness, truth, and beauty meant for us at its core. Amen”
