The Brain's Courage Circuit

In 2010, neuroscientist Yadin Dudai and his team at the Weizmann Institute of Science made a remarkable discovery about what happens inside the brain when a person chooses to be brave. Using fMRI imaging, they watched the brains of participants who were terrified of snakes as they decided whether to bring a live corn snake closer or push it away.

What they found overturned everything we assumed about courage. The brave participants — those who chose to bring the snake closer — were not less afraid. Their amygdalae, the brain's fear centers, fired just as intensely as everyone else's. The difference was that a small region called the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex activated simultaneously, effectively overriding the fear signal. Courage, the researchers concluded, is not the absence of fear. It is a second voice in the brain that says, "Yes, I am afraid — and I am moving forward anyway."

That is exactly what Scripture has been telling us all along. When the Lord said to Joshua, "Be strong and courageous," He did not promise that the trembling would stop. He promised something better — His presence in the middle of it. "Do not be afraid... for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go."

The next time your hands shake before an act of obedience, remember: your brain was designed not to eliminate fear, but to overrule it. God built the courage circuit before He ever issued the command.