No Heavenly Medal of Honor
I recently saw a child wearing a t-shirt that said, “Brave little girl”
Our culture teaches bravery as a virtue the same way it elevates kindness, joy, or thankfulness. These are all Biblical, Godly virtues that we should seek to emulate, but when you remove the reasoning behind them and turn them into blanket statement of what humans should be, they fall flat.
Joy without a reason to be joyful is hypocrisy. Thankfulness without anyone to be thankful to is just silly, and bravery for the sake of bravery is just foolish.
The Bible is full of stories of great bravery. David, Esther, and Daniel are some of the most famous examples. Often we teach these stories to children and say, “You can be brave like Daniel when you [insert hard kid thing like going to the doctor here]” Not only is that not the point of these stories, but it puts an impossible standard on kids. Daniel wasn’t brave just because that’s who he was, he was brave because of his trust in God.
When we teach about characters in the Bible who were brave, we need to focus on the object of their bravery. They were brave because they trusted in God’s sovereign plan, or they were resting in God’s promises of faithfulness to his people.
When David convinces Saul that he can kill Goliath, he does not point to his own strength or bravery, but instead points to a powerful God who has taken care of him in the past. “The LORD who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from this Philistine.” 1 Samuel 17:37
When Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are willing to go to the fiery furnace rather than bow to an idol, they give their reasoning. It’s not stoicism. It’s resting on the all powerful sovereignty of God. “If the God whom we serve exists, then He is able to deliver us from the blazing fiery furnace and from your hand, O king” Daniel 3:17
Teaching children to be brave for the sake of bravery just encourages foolishness (I’m not too scared to do this dangerous thing) and pushes children into an elevated sense of self. (I did it because I was brave.)
God does not reward bravery for the sake of bravery. There is no Heavenly Medal of Honor. Only “Well done” for those who faithfully trusted in Him.