It’s been a while and I have missed you all. I have been thinking about what to share until I found it.“A man of courage is also full of faith”, Cicero was quoted.Lots of experiences, people, events, stories will often suggest the phrase and, of course, there are those, like Cicero, who will try to define such notions. And at the end of the day we are left with the individual task of affirming or disclaiming them, based on our own personal experiences or testimonies of sources within our reach.Of course, being the nation that we are and most probably being the person that you are, you can share in believing that courage does both imply and ignite faith while faith may/may not suggest the other. Coming from the past that we are, and witnessing the present that we are and better still, living on the hope that we are, I’m left wondering at what our main driving force, second to what I believe is God’s hand, really was or is… Courage? Faith? Or perhaps both? I believe faith moves mountains but is it valid without one’s willingness to face odds and still persist in their pursuit of the challenge? Is it enough for us to believe and not act to affirm our belief? And yet some times it makes the best sense to find comfort in the conviction that faith in itself will bring us through. Could we have built this nation to date on simply declaring that ‘we will make it’, and doing nothing about it? Could you have pulled yourself out of that situation that brought you to the edge of the cliff without actually putting your foot down to the circumstances that bound you? Starting university has awoken me. I have yet again to ask, is there a chance the answer ‘yes’ could be valid? Because I also would ask; where does the strength to “face” our situations/fears come from?Why stand up to them in the first place anyway? Aren’t there points in life we’ve hit and are beyond doubt certain that things cannot possibly be possible for us? Didn’t we feel like that as a nation once? Weren’t actions of courage literally ridden on faith? What triggered the struggle for independence on the African continent and revolutions in the different nations of the world at the times they did?Could it be that we derive it from some conviction that it IS possible to get through and beyond the challenge? Could it be that sometimes, or many, some of us undermine the significant presence, and power of faith while we deal with issues in our own daily lives, or that in some respect, it is the more essential of the two? I think so. Well, courage is certainly one of the greatest virtues there is. But how much more important is faith if it’s both the source and the result of courage?
