Fortitude

To stand strong in the face of adversity is universally admired by people. Courage in battle has been renowned from antiquity. And it is still so necessary to carry forth in the day at hand.

Fortitude isn’t merely keeping resolve in the darkness of life. The truest fortitude that can be found for us is found in the heart of God.

Fortitude is the substance of continued action despite all the temporal things around us discouraging faith and persistence in our path.

Let us look to the Son of God for example.

Looking to God on the cross is an extreme example of fortitude and resilience. He completed the Father’s will to show his retaliation on the earth… his mercy and his love in place of all of humankind’s and angel kind’s venom.

Christ was brutally tortured, and the Jews, romans, and others there joined into the satanic orgy of mockery and disdain for the holy.

Pride fueled their every blow against the face of the son of God.

“I can find no charge against him.”

The enemy thought, “there doesn’t have to be. His holy spirit has stepped aside. Let us the legion of hell trample our tormenter. Let us desecrate his brightness and profane the holiness of heaven upon his body.”

And that they did.

They all spat upon their lord. Their lord regardless of their submission to his axioms of kindness and love.

The heart of Christ did not request the deliverance of the holy order of angels from the grievous fate he knew and was destined to receive.

He requested that the Father would save those whom the Father put within his hands.

What was the fortitude that kept Christ going in spite of the worse abuse earth and fallen heaven could bring?

Ultimately… us. Humanity and all of creation reconciled to Himself.

For if all have sinned against him, earthen and spiritual beings, and he has the right to retaliate in his justice, he also has the right to be merciful unto the whole sum of creation.

The very justice of God IS his mercy.

This eventual reality of reconnection to his precious creation at the table of his gladness is the fortitude of God.

We are the very fortitude of the heart of God, and any and all who let the divine God of heaven and earth love them gives him another reason to continue to tarry with creation, in spite of the time it may take for his dream to come true.

How great is his love for us, and how wonderful it is that he is love