Faith comes up at work and I go silent every time. Afterwards I feel like a coward. How do I find the nerve to say anything?

“I, even I, am he that comforteth you: who art thou, that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man which shall be made as grass;”

Isaiah is speaking to exiles who had every practical reason to keep their heads down among a dominant foreign power. The question God puts to them is deliberately deflating: who are you, that you should be afraid of a man who dies, and of a son of man who is made like grass? It is not a rebuke about courage so much as a resizing. The people they were shrinking in front of were mortal.

“And now, Lord, behold their threatenings: and grant unto thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak thy word,”

Peter and John had just been arrested and formally warned to stop speaking about Jesus. The church gathered and prayed, and what they asked for is telling. Not for the threat to be removed, and not for safer circumstances, but for boldness to keep speaking while the threat remained. Courage is treated as something you request rather than something you are supposed to manufacture privately.