Brave Hearts, Strong Arms.

In 1954, a young coach named Bear Bryant loaded 111 Texas A&M football players onto buses and drove them to a dust bowl in Junction, Texas. No fields. No shade. Just cactus, heat, and ten days of the hardest football camp anyone had ever run.

Bryant wasn't trying to build talent. He already had that. He was trying to find out who had the heart to match it. Players quit in waves — walking off the field, hitching rides home, some just disappearing in the night. By the end, only 35 of the 111 were still standing.

Those 35 became known as the Junction Boys. Two years later, that same core group went undefeated and won the Southwest Conference. Not because they were the most gifted men on the roster. Because they were the ones who didn't leave when it got hard.

To be the hardest working person in the room, you have to be willing to get in the room..... and stay there until the job is done.

Talent alone didn't survive Junction. Neither did toughness alone. It took both. A heart that refused to quit, carried by a body and a will that had been trained to endure. Courage got them on the bus. Strength is what got them off it, ten days later, still standing.

"Be on guard. Stand firm in the faith. Be courageous. Be strong. And do everything with love." (1 Corinthians 16: 13-14) 

Stand firm. Be courageous. Be strong. Let love lead you. Because a courageous heart with no strength behind it burns out fast. It starts the fight and can't finish it. And strength with no courage never even shows up. You need both. The heart to step into the hard thing, and the discipline, day after ordinary day, to stay in the grind.

That's true in a marriage that's going through a hard season. It's true in a business decision nobody wants to make. It's true in raising kids who need your presence more than your advice. Showing up once takes courage. Showing up for the tenth, the hundredth, the thousandth time — that takes strength you build intentionally and is fueled by a love for others. That's what Christ does.

Years later in 1968, a young Jerry Leachman stepped on to the football field in Alabama under coach Bear Bryant with a brave heart. A few years later, having developed strong arms, he walked away with an SEC championship and words from Coach Bryant that would stay with him the rest of his life. "Jerry, you're a winner". That encouragement, and his love for others and for Jesus, fueled him to impact countless men and women over decades of coaching and ministry. Including me. He taught me that you can fake caring, but you can't fake showing up. Show up, stand firm. No excuses.

Here's a link to Jerry's new book "Brave Hearts, Strong Arms". It's simply a must read. Decades in the making, it compiles Coach's most influential lessons from the locker room of life. It will change you. He has me.

https://jerrysbook.com/

If you want to be on the scoreboard, it takes a courageous heart and the strength to do the work. This book will help you have both.