There is a hard conversation I have to have and I have been putting it off for weeks. Every time I plan it I lose my nerve. How do I actually do it?

“Go, gather together all the Jews that are present in Shushan, and fast ye for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day: I also and my maidens will fast likewise; and so will I go in unto the king, which is not according to the law: and if I perish, I perish.”

Esther was asked to approach a king unsummoned, which carried a real risk of death, on behalf of people who could not speak for themselves. Her answer is not confident. She asks for three days of fasting first, from everyone, and then says she will go, and if she perishes she perishes. Courage in this scene is preceded by preparation and shared prayer, and it is spoken with the worst outcome still on the table.

“Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong.”

Paul closes a long letter to a fractious church with four short imperatives: watch, stand fast, be brave, be strong. He has just spent chapters on divisions, lawsuits, and disorder, all of which needed someone to speak up. The brevity is the point. At the end of all the argument there comes a moment where the only remaining instruction is to go and do the difficult thing.