Sycamore Square Devotional: Grant Me The Courage - Day One

🍃 Sycamore Square Devotional: Grant Me The Courage 🌿

Keep love on your mind and heart. - From Grow Your Inner Courage 🦁

Ellie Grant typed out the words but there was no a haha moment behind them. She knew she needed more love in her life but as she scanned the newsroom around her, it looked as if everyone needed some uplifting ideas in their lives.

She sighed and sat back. How did one go about finding something so intangable and elusive? She was a reporter. This was something she could be compelled to dig into. But she could see how this lack of love as her focus put a bit of a depressing tone in her daily walk. Not just with God but with herself and her needs and wants in life.

Where to start? "Think, Grant," she whispered to herself. "Love, love, love." She spoke it as a mantra as if it might be enough to entice that emotion to scurry back to her like a lost kitty did to its mommy. And that imaginary kitty was looking at her as if she had lost her mind. Okay, maybe she had. But she was determined to grow her inner courage to embrace life even if she had to force a square block into a round hole.

This was starting to look like a deep dive into the core of who Ellie Grant really was. She sat back in her chair and smiled. "Challenge accepted." She whispered it but it felt more solid than anything else in her life right now.

🍃 Sycamore Square Devotional

"Grant Me the Courage" – Day One

Theme: Grow Your Inner Courage 🦁
Focus Verse:

“Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”
— Joshua 1:9 (NIV)

🌿 Devotional Thought:

Ellie Grant stared at her computer screen in the Sycamore Square newsroom, trying to believe the words she just typed: Keep love on your mind and heart.

They sounded good—uplifting, even. But she didn’t feel them. Not really.

Sometimes, courage isn’t a roar. Sometimes it’s the quiet declaration you whisper to yourself when everything feels dry and disconnected:

“Challenge accepted.”

Ellie wasn’t sure what the challenge even was yet—just that she felt stuck, and the absence of love and joy had started to echo too loudly in the spaces of her life.

You’ve probably been there, too. When the faith you write down in your journal doesn’t quite match what you feel in your chest. When love feels more like a task than a truth.

But this is where God begins His work. Not in the loud confidence of the mountaintop, but in the whispered willingness of the valley.

God doesn’t ask us to leap into love and courage in one bound. He invites us to walk—one intentional, grace-laced step at a time.

He is with you in the typing. The wondering. The stuckness. And He is always inviting you into more.

Like Ellie, you don’t have to know where the road ends. You just have to say yes to the first brave step.

🪞 Journal Prompt:

  1. What “square peg” area in your life feels like you’re trying to force something that just isn’t fitting?

  2. Where do you feel a lack of love—whether in receiving, giving, or believing in it?

  3. What small act of courage could you say “challenge accepted” to this week?

🙏 Prayer:

Lord, I don’t always feel brave. I don’t always feel loved or full of love. But I trust that You are here, even in the searching. Help me to accept Your daily invitation to courage—not by doing more, but by simply showing up. Let me be willing to take one honest, faithful step forward today. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

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