The Lion Who Trembled

In C.S. Lewis's The Horse and His Boy, young Shasta spends most of the story running away. He is afraid of lions, afraid of the desert, afraid of the unknown. But when he finally reaches the Hermit's enclosure and learns that his friends are in danger — that the army of Rabadash is about to fall on an unsuspecting Archenland — something shifts. Shasta is exhausted, hungry, and utterly alone on a strange horse. He has every reason to stop. Instead, he rides through the night to warn King Lune, barely able to stay in the saddle.

What Lewis understood is that courage never arrives as a feeling. It arrives as a decision made while the feeling says otherwise. Shasta does not stop being afraid. He simply decides that the safety of others matters more than his own comfort.

This is the pattern we see throughout Scripture. When the Lord told Joshua, "Be strong and courageous," He was not promising that fear would vanish. He was saying that obedience would outlast it. When David walked toward Goliath, his knees may well have been shaking — but his feet kept moving.

Courage is not the absence of trembling. It is the willingness to move forward while you tremble, because you trust that the God who called you will not abandon you on the road.