Photo by The Wandering Angel

By Melanie Mar Chow

I am usually not thought to be a person who employs courage in my daily life. Or maybe I just do not acknowledge that it gets lived out in my life. I do find myself not wanting to miss any new opportunity that God brings, and that requires courage, but to recently be called courageous was foreign to my ears.

Each year right before the New Year, I ask God for a word — a thought that is part of the attributes of His Kingdom — to be able to carry me throughout the coming year. In 2018, I was called to embody in my life Christ’s humility as He served His people. It was a rich time to be able to see evidence of Christ’s humility in response to my prayers and even to find healing in an area that I struggled with for the past 7 years.

So what lies ahead for me in 2019? One of the terms I heard used in my final week of 2018 was the word “pluck.” I had not heard this word used much and had to go look it up. Turns out, the common usage of “pluck” as a verb is related to what one does with chickens to defeather them, or what we do to our eyebrows regularly, or to play a stringed instrument. However, according to the Merriam Webster dictionary, “pluck” as a noun means “courageous, readiness to fight or continue against odds.” The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as “spirited and determined courage”.

What embodies a spirited and determined courage? I remembered as a child hearing the mission of the Starship Enterprise “to boldly go where no one has gone before” each week before the cast of Star Trek would go and live out its mission. Each hour show saw the crew travel and attempt to uphold their prime directive.

Part of the mission statement of JEMS, the organization I work for, is “Jesus Everyday.” As a typical goal-oriented Asian American, I try to live out “Jesus everyday,” but end up with a lot of regret for the ways that I don’t express Jesus in my life.

But a friend always reminds me of the story of one of her favorite faith heroes, William Whiting Borden (November 1, 1887 – April 9, 1913). Borden was the heir to his family’s wealth from their silver mining work in Colorado. His parents sent him around the world for his high school graduation gift, after which he then returned to study at Yale and then attend Princeton Theological Seminary. After graduation he wrote to his parents that as a missionary candidate he was planning to travel to serve his chosen field, Gansu province, China. Wanting to be prepared, he took a detour from his destination to stop in Egypt to learn Arabic, in hopes of working with Muslims in China. But while in Egypt, he contracted spinal meningitis and died at age 25.

As Borden had chosen to walk away from his earthly fortune to serve as a missionary, news of his death was viewed by many as a tragedy; but God used it for good. As many young men and women heard of Borden’s death, it inspired them to give up their lives and go to be missionaries for Jesus. Following his death, his parents were given his Bible that had held writings of his responses to major milestones. He wrote “no reserve” about his desire to give up his fortune. When he learned that his father would not allow him to work for the Borden company , he wrote “no retreat.” The entry right before his death, he wrote: “At the end of the day, let there be no excuses, no explanations, no regrets.” Borden lived life with pluck. He gave himself permission to communicate what mattered in each situation. He had peace despite disapproval. This is the kind of courage I want to grow in this year to quickly follow Jesus with intentional, determined courage to live and see the change Christ intended. What kind of courage do you want to grow in?

2 Cor. 5:5-7
He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight.

Rev. Melanie Mar Chow serves God through Asian American Christian Fellowship, the campus ministry division of the Japanese Evangelical Missionary Society (JEMS). She has been an ordained American Baptist minister since 2004. A Pacific Northwest native, she currently lives with her husband and daughter in Southern California.