In other words, will a courageous person always step up to the plate, and a coward always tuck his tail and hide? Do they have any control over it?
I suspect one does not know til tested. And one may respond differently in different circumstances.
It wasn't so with Gideon, he was weak and afraid but God made him a Mighty Warrior.
7 When the Israelites cried out to the Lord because of Midian, 8 he sent them a prophet, who said, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I brought you up out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 9 I rescued you from the hand of the Egyptians. And I delivered you from the hand of all your oppressors;I drove them out before you and gave you their land. 10 I said to you, ‘I am the Lord your God; do not worship the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you live.’ But you have not listened to me.”
11 The angel of the Lord came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshingwheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites.12 When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.”
13 “Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but if theLord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our ancestors told us about when they said, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.”
14 The Lord turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?”
15 “Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.”
16 The Lord answered, “I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites, leaving none alive.”
17 Gideon replied, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, give me a sign that it is really you talking to me. 18 Please do not go away until I come back and bring my offering and set it before you.”
And the Lord said, “I will wait until you return.”
19 Gideon went inside, prepared a young goat, and from an ephah[a] of flour he made bread without yeast. Putting the meat in a basket and its broth in a pot, he brought them out and offered them to him under the oak.
20 The angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened bread, place them on this rock, and pour out the broth.” And Gideon did so. 21 Then the angel of the Lord touched the meat and the unleavened bread with the tip of the staff that was in his hand. Fire flared from the rock, consuming the meat and the bread. And the angel of the Lorddisappeared. 22 When Gideon realized that it was the angel of the Lord, he exclaimed, “Alas, SovereignLord! I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face!”
23 But the Lord said to him, “Peace! Do not be afraid.You are not going to die.”
24 So Gideon built an altar to the Lord there and called it The Lord Is Peace. To this day it stands in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.
25 That same night the Lord said to him, “Take the second bull from your father’s herd, the one seven years old.[b] Tear down your father’s altar to Baal and cut down the Asherah pole[c] beside it. 26 Then build a proper kind of[d] altar to the Lord your God on the top of this height. Using the wood of the Asherah pole that you cut down, offer the second[e]bull as a burnt offering.”
27 So Gideon took ten of his servants and did as theLord told him. But because he was afraid of his family and the townspeople, he did it at night rather than in the daytime.
28 In the morning when the people of the town got up, there was Baal’s altar, demolished, with the Asherah pole beside it cut down and the second bull sacrificed on the newly built altar!
29 They asked each other, “Who did this?”
When they carefully investigated, they were told, “Gideon son of Joash did it.”
30 The people of the town demanded of Joash, “Bring out your son. He must die, because he has broken down Baal’s altar and cut down the Asherah pole beside it.”
31 But Joash replied to the hostile crowd around him, “Are you going to plead Baal’s cause? Are you trying to save him? Whoever fights for him shall be put to death by morning! If Baal really is a god, he can defend himself when someone breaks down his altar.” 32 So because Gideon broke down Baal’s altar, they gave him the name Jerub-Baal[f] that day, saying, “Let Baal contend with him.”
33 Now all the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples joined forces and crossed over the Jordan and camped in the Valley of Jezreel. 34 Then the Spirit of the Lord came on Gideon, and he blew a trumpet, summoning the Abiezrites to follow him.35 He sent messengers throughout Manasseh, calling them to arms, and also into Asher, Zebulun and Naphtali, so that they too went up to meet them.
36 Gideon said to God, “If you will save Israel by my hand as you have promised— 37 look, I will place a wool fleece on the threshing floor. If there is dew only on the fleece and all the ground is dry, then I will know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you said.” 38 And that is what happened. Gideon rose early the next day; he squeezed the fleece and wrung out the dew—a bowlful of water.
39 Then Gideon said to God, “Do not be angry with me. Let me make just one more request. Allow me one more test with the fleece, but this time make the fleece dry and let the ground be covered with dew.” 40 That night God did so. Only the fleece was dry; all the ground was covered with dew.
I think our most instinctual responses are based on our fundamental understanding of life and humanity. If you have the foundation that says there is a time to run and a time to stand, then that will greatly influence your action. But, those foundational truths can be learned, and unlearned, due to circumstances and experiences.
All that to say you're likely going to respond the way you've always responded, unless you have a significant event that causes you to do some intense soul-searching and examining of your core beliefs. After that, you might be different...you might not.
You should know better than to EVER use always on here. Shame.
Nothing in the world is EVER or CONSTANT. The only thing constant IS change. No one is all black or all white and any act can be judged accordingly as either courageous or cowardly depending upon the situation as well as the person doing the judging.
Oh how brilliant. I am just in awe.
Especially that fascinating Gideon Bible part. Wow. Tell us more.
I tried to Google it and didn't find it. If you have a link, I'd love to read more!
That sounds about right.
Yes, Mom. :p
I agree with that, but I'm not sure everyone sees where they sit on the spectrum.
I don't think they are fixed traits.
A coward can be courageous. A courageous person can be cowardly. What counts as scary is different for everyone. It depends how much we want to fight off that fear - that affects whether or not someone chooses to be courageous.
I think you might be right.
Courage the Cowardly Dog exemplifies this well :D
I think we need to make sure distinction between acting courageously and being courageous. We could argue that the coward who suddenly acts heroically wasn't a coward after all. Or that the hero who runs just had not met a monster scary enough until then.
We can say that bravery and yellowbellyness are the end of a spectrum, and we fall in there somewhere. Until we choose to be something else. In which case we could argue that the new self was really us all along.
I think we are what we are. The thing is that we don't know what that is until the right (or wrong) moment comes.
I think they can change, as I do not believe we fully know ourselves or how we will react in every situation until placed in it. I don't believe in absolutes like that as we all can surprise even ourselves. And if we are learning growing and developing in life through age and experience, our behavior will change also. Sometimes it is simply learned behavior.
Although we are all born with a specific personality and we may always have certain tendencies.
Perhaps, but we all ave different measurements for what "against the wall" means as well. Some will stand by and do nothing while others charge in.
You just inspired another question. If we have it, what makes it so? Hmm... I'm going to go post that one.
