Be strong and courageous

“Be strong and courageous.” The message is repeated over and over to Joshua. And to me.

We stepped off the train from Jaipur at 11 p.m. in New Delhi and joined a moving river of fellow travelers. It was August 2009. The air was thick with heat and dust. The stench of garbage and urine hit full force.

I struggled to breathe. 

All of us were streaming through and around various groups camped out in the train station, walking past dusty forms of men, women, and children asleep on the ground or on benches. The masses flowed up metal stairs and crossed the tracks on a walkway overhead.

Our family of five tried to keep up, pulling and lifting our suitcases, attempting to stay together.

Sensory Overload

As we exited on broken pavement, a beggar stepped in front of me, waving the length of his raw and bleeding arm in my face. A taxi driver motioned for us to follow across the dirt to his taxi, which was parked up against a pile of garbage. By this time, I was in sensory overload. Seriously.

Quite simply, overwhelmed.

Choices

The trip to India was our first as a family. We were there to decide where we should move the following year after Becca’s graduation from high school. Our travels had taken us to Bangalore in the south, the Garden City of India located on a plateau with pleasant temperatures year round.

Delhi was the other choice. In that moment of the New Delhi train station experience, everything in me resisted any thought of moving to this massive, polluted, crowded albeit historic city.

But then. As Todd and the taxi driver loaded our bags. I happened to glance over at the little white car parked beside us at the garbage mound. Its rear windshield was filled with words.

Astonishing words.

Memories

Instantly my mind traveled back to September of 2001. Todd had gone on a 3-week trip to West Africa while I remained in the States with our three children. As he was leaving we knew there would be little opportunity to communicate with one another. In my daily time of reading the Bible and praying, I happened to be in the Book of Joshua. The Lord gave me a verse to hold onto and pray for our family:

“Haven’t I commanded you: be strong and courageous? Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go” (Joshua 1:9 CSB).

Then 9/11 happened. The world was in shock.

Todd was in Mali and planes were not flying. In Arizona, his dad had emergency open-heart surgery that same week. Again and again, I went back to Joshua 1:9. I spoke it aloud and remembered He was with us, no matter where we were, together or apart. To this day it’s our “family verse.”

Be strong and courageous

By the way, the little white car next to our taxi that night in the New Delhi train station? It had a dark rear windshield. These words, in all-capital white letters, filled the glass:

WHEREVER YOU GO, BE STRONG AND COURAGEOUS, I WILL BE WITH YOU, I WILL NOT FAIL YOU OR FORSAKE YOU.

The Lord spoke

In the midst of the garbage, the heat, the raw setting of poverty and multitudes of people, the Lord spoke graphically and personally to me. What were the chances of seeing something like that in this city of 20+ million? Where less than one percent follow Christ?

I showed Todd and pointed it out to our children. I took a picture to prove I hadn’t dreamed it.  And in 2010 we moved to New Delhi, India.

Against my wildest imaginations at the time, Delhi became home. A colorful, fascinating, heart-gripping home. Rich in people and history and culture. A milieu of the beautiful and the broken.

And there were days I needed fresh reminders of the Lord’s truth in Joshua 1:9. Be strong and courageous.

What about you?

Is there a verse or passage of Scripture that seems to be on repeat in your life? His Truth sustaining and helping you take the next step of obedience? This year as you walk His path—in city or desert, on the mountain or in the valley—be strong and courageous. And may our hearts rest in what is true, abiding in Christ through prayer and the Word.

“The Lord is the one who will go before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or abandon you. Do not be afraid or discouraged” (Deuteronomy 31:8 CSB).