#9 Holy Wit – Sidecar Reflections Be Strong and Courageous (I Am With You: Courage Rooted in God’s Nearness – 1 Chronicles 28:20) ________________________________________ The shop lights were already off when he realized he’d stayed too long. The building was quiet in that way only empty places get—too quiet to be comforting. The kind of quiet where every sound feels like it’s auditioning for significance. He stood there with the keys in his hand, staring at the unfinished workbench. Tools laid out carefully. Measurements written down. Half the job done, half the job looming. Tomorrow, people would expect progress. Results. Something that looked finished enough to justify confidence. Tonight, all he had was the weight of not yet. He locked up, stepped outside, and paused. There’s a particular moment at night when courage feels theoretical. When you’re not actively failing, but you’re also not succeeding. You’re just standing between promise and completion, wondering if you’re equal to what you said yes to. That’s where Solomon stood—only with a nation watching. David didn’t give his son a strategy session. He didn’t sit him down with a contingency plan or a risk assessment. He gave him something far more unsettling and far more solid: “Be strong and of good courage, and do it.” Not understand it all. Not feel ready. Do it. Because courage, biblically speaking, is not a mood. It’s obedience with shaky hands. Then David names the reason Solomon can move forward without being paralyzed: “For the LORD God—my God—will be with you.” Not might be. Not if you do this right. Will be. David doesn’t pretend the work is small. He doesn’t minimize the pressure. He grounds courage where Scripture always grounds it—not in the strength of the person doing the work, but in the nearness of the God who called them to it. That’s the turn we often miss. We read “be strong and courageous” as a personal challenge, when it’s actually a theological statement. Strength is commanded because presence is promised. Courage is reasonable because abandonment is not on the table. “He will not leave you nor forsake you, until you have finished all the work.” Until. Not just at the beginning, when enthusiasm is cheap. Not just in the middle, when momentum carries you. Until the work is finished. Which quietly exposes one of our favorite misunderstandings: we assume God’s presence is for moments of crisis, when in fact Scripture insists it is for endurance. For finishing. For staying when novelty wears off and fear starts asking better questions. Solomon’s task was holy, but it was also exhausting. Sacred work almost always is. And God does not promise to make it easy. He promises to stay. That is the courage Scripture keeps returning to—not the kind that rushes forward, but the kind that remains faithful when the work stretches longer than expected. And here’s the deeper comfort for us reading this side of Christ: the promise David spoke finds its fullest weight in Jesus. “I am with you always,” He says—not as a metaphor, not as encouragement wallpaper, but as covenant reality. So if you are standing in front of unfinished work tonight—calling, obedience, repentance, faithfulness that hasn’t wrapped itself up neatly yet—this passage does not tell you to look harder inside yourself. It tells you to look where David pointed Solomon. To the God who stays. To the God who does not leave midway. To the God whose presence makes courage possible—not because you are sufficient, but because He is near. And that, inconveniently and gloriously, means you should probably go back tomorrow… …and do it. #HolyWitSidecar #GordonMcGinnis #BeStrongAndCourageous #IAmWithYou