The very next day G stood up at his school cafeteria during lunch and announced, "Everybody, STOP eating! Let's all pray!!"
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This is a topic which we've revisited several times in the weeks pass. We talked about giving thanks to the Lord for providing us with abundance of food and asking God to keep us in His folds with food on the table and His spiritual food. But this time is a little different because it ventures out to exerting your own beliefs when no one else is on your side.
The first time when both A&G observed that no one in their class says grace before lunch, I asked them both if they said grace themselves regardless of what other people might do or say. The answer was no, they didn't say grace at school lunches. I suggested that they can still pray when no one else is praying. Interestingly, that was not too great of an effect - meaning that, my comment/question only brought on their resistance. They did not want to pray when no one else was praying either. My suggestion was like isolating them to be different in an odd way.
So this time, when the topic came up again, I tried redirection: I gave them tips on rallying on group participation and honing in on their leadership skills. I placed the focus on the other kids and not on themselves.
"You can tell everybody to pray," I suggested.
"But they're still eating," they imagined.
"Then you can ask them to stop eating; let's pray first BEFORE we eat."
So rather than isolate themselves to do something totally different from the crowd, it was to get participation from the crowd to feel included.
And did the class do as G said? That's not the point here really. The point is not to focus too much on the "reaction" of the crowd to determine his success, standing up for his beliefs. It was his own "act" that really mattered here - the "act" of standing up for what he believes is right.
How's that for standing up for your beliefs?
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