Thankfully, scriptures helped me identify the “okay” boldness. They include:
*Everyday spiritual confidence: “The wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are as bold as a lion” (Proverbs 28:1).
*Boldness amid spiritual negatives: “Now, Lord, look on their threats and grant to Your servants that with all boldness they may speak your word” (Acts 4:29)
*A wise and courageous “mouth-set”: The apostle Paul's request: “That I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel” (Ephesians 6:19-20).
*Confidence through faith in Christ: “Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold” (2 Corinthians 3:12).
Disclaimer: “boldness” is not “brashness.” “Boldness” is pure in motives, earnest in application, gracious in circumstance. Brashness tends to beat people up or tear them down. Boldness is trusting God to point to the right words and actions to bring about right-living in the midst of our fallen world.
Some heroes of the faith who showed boldness:
David, in facing Goliath and trusting God in what seemed overwhelming odds.
Esther, who put her comfortable life at risk to ask her pagan husband-king to spare the Jews from annihilation (including herself!).
The Lord's disciples, including (later) Paul, who faced mobs and imprisonment for telling about Jesus.
If those who analyze personalities proposed a continuum that had shy and mousy people on the left, and bold “shaker-movers” on the right, I'd be among the meek crowd huddling on the left of the chart. I took Speech 101 in college (required, even for shrinking-violet freshmen) but crossed “public speaker” off of my life goals. How was I to know that a few decades later I'd move on that chart a bit to the other side. Not way across to “brave, brash and quotable,” but able to address moderately large crowds without fainting under the podium.
Probably my heroine for “be bold” was an aged German woman who specialized in the quiet, precise work of watch repair. Then war yanked her out of the watch shop, and she survived arrest and notorious imprisonment during the Holocaust. Once freed, she could have retired to a quiet, safe life. Instead, until very old age, she traveled the world, declaring her faith and trust in God in the most horrific of experiences. Among her quotes (which I never forgot in a once-a-lifetime experience of hearing her speak): “There is no pit so deep that God's love is not deeper still.” Her name (if you hadn't already figured it out): Corrie ten Boom.
Godly boldness is not nurtured in cotton-soft circumstances. It rises from the fires of trial, purged by the love of Christ, and spread with the compulsion of God-stoked conviction.
