What your teen learned this past weekend in Edge!
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Fortitude is a virtue or habit that trains us to suffer well, bear painful things that often come upon us when we are doing the right thing.
You aren’t born with fortitude - It comes from practice – repeated exposure to fearful things and opportunities to face them and rise about our fears. Think about police officers and fire fighters. They have training to build up their fortitude for when they face real danger. Fortitude is also a supernatural grace that comes from God. We see that with the martyrs who were willing to die for their faith.
In order to learn more about Fortitude, we are going to talk about the story of Noah’s Ark. I know that growing up we saw in books or toys cute little animals walking into a quaint little boat. Then we remember the beautiful rainbow. How quaint. The Bible is not a history book or a science book – it is a library that teaches truth on faith and morals. The story of Noah teaches us a lot. And although it sounds farfetched, I do want to say there is a lot of evidence there was a flood that killed many people – at least in the Ancient Near East where this flood would have taken place. Babylon and Samaria, ancient civilizations, also mention a flood account like the account in Genesis.
Noah is a tremendous model for us as a man who had serious fortitude in following God’s commands during a time when the entire world had turned their backs on God. Noah was 500 years old, and had three sons, when God told him that the world had grown so wicked and evil that He was going to destroy the entire world with a great flood.
God decided to save Noah and his family because Noah was a righteous man – which means he “walked with God.” Noah is commanded to build a boat. But God had very specific instructions for this boat because this huge ark would hold not just Noah and his household, but also a large zoo of animals. God tells Noah to build an ark with a length of “300 cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits.” A cubit is an ancient measurement that was measured from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger.
This is a pretty big freightliner. So often we skip over this part and go straight to the flood and rainbow. But think about how long it would take Noah to build an ark of that size. Of course his sons probably did not have a choice about helping; but even with four people, this ark would have taken a long time to build. And they did not have electricity or modern carpentry equipment. It would have taken decades.
On top of all this, the world around them was falling apart. The human race became so bad, evil, and wicked that God decided to flood the entire world. There probably was some difficulty and persecution from the people around Noah, and I am sure people thought Noah was crazy. Maybe some persecuted him and his whole family for what they were working on.
Add on top of that the complexity and size of the task of building an ark and filling it with pairs of all the animals in the world – it’s clear this is a huge undertaking. People do not like different – they don’t know how to handle it, so they attack it.
Fortitude is the virtue of being firm and constant in doing the right thing even in the face of difficulty. Because it is a moral virtue, we grow in fortitude by practicing it, and God helps us practice virtues by giving us grace. In the face of persecution and struggle, Noah remains steadfast, modeling fortitude.
It would be amazing to have the kind of fortitude to do the right thing as Noah had. In our own lives, when God tells us to do something akin to building an ark, or when our life seems difficult, it would be great if we had the courage and fortitude to conquer our challenges. So how did Noah do it? What is the secret? His secret is trust in God and not letting fear take over his life. How many times do we let fear paralyze us?
How about in school or sports? There are times in life when school gets hard, or you are so tired from training for athletics that you want to quit. Fortitude is the virtue that gives you the ability to pick yourself up and try again. It takes hard work and practice to build this virtue.
Noah trusted God, even if things seemed difficult. And because of this, Noah saved his family and mankind from physical death. In our own lives, if we want to experience fortitude it takes practice facing our fears, prayer, trusting in God, not letting our fear (emotions) control us – that’s how you will overcome obstacles and challenges. Will you sometimes fail – Yes! You pick yourself up and try again. It takes practice to build fortitude.
Family Challenge: Do one thing this week to face a fear. When something is tough and you feel like quitting, see if you can overcome your fear. Repeat to yourself 1 Corinthians 16:13 – 14: “Be on your guard, stand firm in the faith, be courageous, be strong. Your every act should be done with love.”
Have a great week!
Joyfully, Christina