What brave things have you started or attempted these past 100 days? It seems to me that everything we do following Jesus takes courage, from our first prayer asking him to forgive us and then submitting to his authority, to making changes to our behaviour and addressing spots in our hearts, to serving others with our whole selves and resources; doing and being and submitting and loving all take courage.

Honestly, I don’t feel like a different person from reading this book (although I’ve had quite a few confrontations with myself during the course of the three months), but I’m more aware that everything I do is a choice and the less automatic choice, the one that requires some courage, is often the best one. Noticing when I’m tempted to say ‘no’ and asking myself the reason behind it is helping me challenge my own decisions and responses.

Downs suggests we write ourselves a visible reminder that we are braver than we realise. I think maybe that’s the big thought, the big mental adjustment: we can make the brave choice but God loves us just the same whether we do or don’t. Choosing to believe we are brave, however, makes us more likely to make a brave choice; making the brave choices that we talked about in this book will ultimately lead us to be more like Christ. As someone who loves Jesus and wants to closely follow him, that’s very appealing.