Francis and Lisa Chan Talk About the “Most Courageous Thing” They’ve Ever Done

If you keep up with my videos and blog posts, you know that my favorite question to ask people is, “What’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done?” Over the years I’ve posed that question to countless friends and people I interviewed during my years hosting FamilyLife Today radio. 

Often people answer that they’ve never done anything courageous. Usually they’re thinking of extreme courage—the type shown by soldiers and firefighters and police officers. But when I define courage as “doing your duty in the face of fear,” they will pause a few moments and then come out with some very fascinating stories. 

A good example is on this week’s Inspiring Courageous Faith podcast. Some of these podcasts feature some of the very best interviews I did from the FamilyLife Today archives, and this week we’re featuring Francis and Lisa Chan. They talked about their book, You and Me Forever: Marriage In Light of Eternity. They shared how they got married and how their commitment to follow Jesus has worked out in their marriage. And they had some amazing stories about choices as they worked to work as a team on a shared mission.

And when I asked them about the most courageous thing they’d ever done, they had some very interesting answers.  

Lisa said, “The most courageous thing you can do is say, ‘Yes’ to something God is asking you to do that you are afraid of.” Wow, that’s as good a definition of “courageous faith” as you’ll find anywhere.

Lisa said God had given her many opportunities to confront her fears. She recalled the time they invited a man who had had been in prison for six years, and his wife and three kids to move in with then. “That took a little bit of courage, and it took dying to ourselves. It took saying, ‘You can have my bedroom and my bathroom’—which was, in one sense, so stupid and dumb but felt hard—and letting go of fear ... that’s the most courageous thing to do.”  

Lisa went on: “If you are a scaredy-cat like me, you have to preach the truth to yourself. 

You have to preach verses like 2 Timothy 1:7: ‘For God gave us a spirit, not of fear, but of power and love and self-control.’ I have to say the truth of God’s Word to myself all the time because I will limit myself—I will refuse to say, ‘Yes,’ to God and will be consumed with anxiety and fear in all these situations.”

Then Francis shared the most courageous thing he’s ever done. “You’ll probably be surprised by this,” he said, “but probably the most courageous moments are when I’m sitting on a plane with a stranger or talking to a neighbor—and I lay out the gospel, one on one, with them. That terrifies me!”

Francis is a popular speaker and has presented messages to huge crowds. “I can stand in front of 100,000 people in a stadium—no big deal!” he explained. “You put me, one on one, with someone that I know is not used to hearing about Jesus—and I’m going to lay it out for them—it still scares me to this day. It still takes courage.”

I can certainly relate to that. It’s one thing to talk about faith to a group of people who are there to hear about faith. But the thought of explaining the gospel with someone who, in Francis’s words, “is not used to hearing about Jesus” is another thing. You worry that the person will reject you or become hostile.

But think about this: If you are a follower of Christ, that means God used someone to tell you how to become disciple of Jesus. It may have been a friend, a parent or family member, a fellow student, a colleague at work, a pastor, or perhaps a total stranger ... but someone put aside their fears and told you about the basics of the gospel: that our sin separates us from God, that God sent His Son to live on earth and pay the penalty for that sin, and we need to accept God’s gift to us and commit our lives to Him as our Lord. 

We know this ... we know how others influenced us ... but we still feel that fear in our guts when we are given the same opportunity to tell others about our faith. 

This is where life and truth collide ... and convictions reside. It’s time more of us who know Christ to step up in courageous faith and share the gospel.

You can listen to the entire interview with Francis and Lisa Chan on Inspiring Courageous Faith. And be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel.