Articles with courage

Kairos: The Wisdom of Knowing When to Act for Strategic Impact

Kairos (καιρός) is an ancient Greek word that refers to a decisive, appointed, or opportune “right time.” It appears over 80 times in the New Testament to describe a divine moment when God intervenes or when a crucial window of opportunity requires a specific, faithful response.

[ Read the SemperVerus article, Strive for Readiness ]

Kairos vs Carpe Diem:  While both phrases encourage active engagement with the present, the Latin phrase Carpe Diem (“seize the day”) is about acting on any moment, whereas Kairos is about recognizing the right moment on which to act. One pushes you to create your own opportunity, while the other reminds you to wait for the opportune time.

[ Read the SemperVerus article, Understand the Times and Know What to Do ]

Carpe Diem is a proactive call to action rooted in the philosophy that time is fleeting. It encourages you to take control of your destiny, take risks, and maximize every single day—regardless of the external circumstances.

Kairos isn’t about rushing to force a moment; it’s about having the wisdom and intuition to spot the perfect, fleeting window of opportunity and acting decisively when the “time is ripe.” Kairos is the perfect, strategic moment.

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Prepare for Teams of Terrorists, Says Gabe Suarez

Gabe Suarez is a no-holds-barred, full-throated, say-what-he-thinks, blunt, honest, speaking-to-the-point firearms and self-defense expert with decades of experience in martial arts and law enforcement, including being a SWAT sniper and assaulter. He was awarded the Police Medal of Valor for a gunfight against three armed robbery-homicide suspects and he’s the founder and trainer of Suarez Tactics, a training and consulting organization focused solely on developing the art of tactics and gunfighting. His YouTube channel is @suareztactics.

On his Patreon site, he’s written the forceful article, You and the Terrorist(s). With his permission, and because it has application for church security teams, we have summarized the article below (but you’ll want to subscribe to his Patreon site, read the full article there, and learn from all the site’s insightful self-defense content). As Gabe Suarez says, “We teach good guys how to prevail against the bad guys. Whether facing a common robber or a terrorist bent on mass murder, we teach you the skills to defeat them, and as well to live a life of excellence.”

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He begins by pointing to John Lott’s research paper, Do Armed Civilians Stop Active Shooters More Effectively Than Uniformed Police?, in accepting the fact that private citizens defeat active shooters to a greater degree and with better results—collectively—than law enforcement.

[ Read the SemperVerus article, A List of Active Killer Incidents at Houses of Worship and Religious Schools ]

Mr. Suarez stresses that, in today’s anarchistic world requiring the need of heightened self-defense, “we are not looking for a lone wolf terrorist, nor a drugged up psychiatric patient, but rather—as Sarah Adams notes—a well trained and dedicated terrorist known as a ‘Fedayeen’ (Arabic: ‘those who sacrifice themselves’).” He compares this combatant to the Kamikaze of WW2. He says, “Their goal is to kill as many Americans as possible and to die ‘gloriously’ in the process.”

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Freedom Plane National Tour: Experience US History Firsthand

Experience consequential and original 18th and 19th century documents fundamental to America’s founding at major museums in eight US cities throughout 2026 as part of celebrating America’s 250th Anniversary (the semiquincentennial).

[ Read the SemperVerus article, Celebrating 250 Years: Learn About the American Revolution ]

Beginning in March 2026 and running through August 2026, the Freedom Plane National Tour: Documents That Forged a Nation will include the Treaty of Paris (1783) and the Secret Printing of the Constitution in Draft Form (1787).

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Pray the Prayers of the Apostle Paul

Prayer and reading Scripture are fundamentally important in our Christian journey as the primary ways to build a deep, loving, personal relationship, seek guidance, express praise and thanks, confess sins, find strength, and align our will with God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. These are the “lifeblood” of a believer’s spiritual health, enabling participation in furthering God’s kingdom and His work on Earth.

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Effective prayer is a vital, transformative connection to God rather than merely a way to request favors of him. Essential themes include treating prayer as a conversation, seeking strength over easier circumstances, and fostering a submissive heart.

[ Read SemperVerus articles on the topic of the BIBLE ]

The Apostle Paul’s prayers in the New Testament are characterized by, among other qualities, intense gratitude, intercession for the spiritual growth of churches, encouragement, and requests for wisdom, love, and vigor for believers. His key prayers focus on strengthening faith, unity, knowing God’s will, and persevering in hope.

[ Read SemperVerus articles on the topic of PRAYER ]

Use Paul’s prayers as transformative inspiration for your own prayers. What follows is a compilation of all of Paul’s prayers and prayer directives, drawn from the book Praying with Paul: A Call to Spiritual Reformation by D.A. Carson:

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The Gun That Preserved the Union in the American Civil War

The total years between the end of the American Revolutionary War in 1783 (the civil war when British colonialists fought British soldiers, also known as American Patriots fighting American Loyalists to the Crown) to the beginning of the American Civil War in 1861 (when American Northerners fought American Southerners) were 78; a time of merely 3 generations.

[ Read the SemperVerus article, Celebrating 250 Years: Learn About the American Revolution ]

Within that span, the gun, Brown Bess—popularly used in the 18th-century conflict (1775–1783)—evolved into the Springfield Model 1861, used in the 19th-century hostility (1861–1865).

[ Read the SemperVerus article, The Heavy, Long Gun That Won the American Revolutionary War ]

The primary difference between the Brown Bess and the Springfield Model 1861 is the transition from a smoothbore, flintlock musket with limited accuracy to a rifled, percussion-cap musket with significantly increased range and precision.

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