My Word for 2020

Another year, another word!

After the great steadfast saga of 2019, I needed a breather before picking a worthy word for 2020.

The difficult thing about picking one word is that I believe there are so MANY great words that SHOULD apply to every day—not just for a year. But, alas, I do this for the sake of being intentional and sometimes it is easier to hone in on particular areas at a time. No need to overwhelm myself.

So, ready for my word? Drum roll…….

Courage!

I am going to be sweepingly broad for this post—in hopes that I will continue to keep this conversation going throughout the year as I learn and grow more in this area.

What Inspired Me

I’ve actually been thinking a lot more about courage—and it’s foil, fear—for some time now. Not only have I become increasingly convicted of my own great need for it, but I have realized that, without courage, there is no point in continuing to pursue any other growth areas.

C. S Lewis explains this so beautifully. And he’s so very right. You see, there are several areas I desire to grow in—patience, compassion, humility, empathy, self-control, steadfastness (still), faith, generosity, gentleness, boldness, determination, discernment, wisdom, kindness and so on. But, I realized that if I truly want to grow in these areas—I must first have the courage to do so.

I think it would be helpful to define what I mean by courage. Oxford dictionary defines courage as “the ability to do something that frightens one,” and “strength in the face of pain or grief”. I think these are great definitions because they acknowledge the presence and hinderance of personal fears. You see, I can’t really pursue courage without acknowledging the existence of fear.

And that brings me to one of my other favorite quotes on courage.

So there it is—in order to pursue courage, I must not wait for my fears to be erased, but rather decide to face them.

What I Mean

While I won’t get into every area of life where I have fears to deal with—I will say that I believe there are certain categories of fear in life that need to be faced. I tried my best to categorize them the way I see things, but this is merely my perspective.

1.) The Fear of Others (Man)

This is the fear of judgement, disapproval, rejection, or an imbalanced preoccupation with the opinions of others. Whether it’s the fear of standing up to someone you know, the fear of someone judging you or the fear of disappointing someone—fear of others can be deeply-rooted and debilitating. I talk about this a little in another blog post, for anybody who is curious.

2.) The Fear of Self

I made this category up, but I mean to describe any fears that are rooted in our own personal sense of inadequacy. Whether these are personal insecurities, weaknesses, past failures, secrets, struggles, sins, etc.—I argue that these attitudes create a type of fear where we can become terrified of being “found out” or “not enough”. Maybe guilt or shame would be a good word to use to describe what these fears can become.

3.) The Fear of the Future

In this last category, I clump together all other fears—either tangible or hypothetical—that relate to our immediate or distant future. Or, I suppose another word for it would be our worries. We can become afraid of all the unknown and uncontrollable factors in our life far too easily. And the fear of not knowing what will happen or come causes us to worry.

I believe that the common denominator in all of these fear categories is that they have an enormous impact on our daily decisions, and therefore, life. Thus, I cannot imagine a more important virtue (if you want to call it that) to cultivate this year!

Where to Start

Building courage to face fears—to face life—is no light matter. For this reason, I don’t want to go on in this post any longer. I am only just beginning in my journey. But I will say this—I do believe that there is one type of fear that is quite right and healthy. And that is the fear of God.

The fear of God is mentioned throughout Scripture, and as I am not a theologian or expert I don’t pretend to fully grasp the range of what it means or how to explain it. But I do believe this—that Jesus Christ died in my place so that I could no longer fear the just punishment of God for my own sins, but so that I could reverently delight in the pleasure and majesty of God with a sense of awe. The fear of God, then, is a perspective of respect for who he is and what he is capable of.

I must again defer to C.S. Lewis to explain it better than I can in this excerpt from The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe:

“Aslan is a lion- the Lion, the great Lion." "Ooh" said Susan. "I'd thought he was a man. Is he-quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion"..."Safe?" said Mr Beaver ..."Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you.”

Final Thoughts

Well, there you have it. I think this Narnia quote fits rather well with my snowy Narnia-inspired photo shoot! I am sincerely excited to grow more courageous in 2020 and to share this journey with you. If you have a word for 2020, or any thoughts on courage, please share!