Society says, "Don't rock the boat." The Status Quo states, "Don't disagree." Your co-workers think, "Keep your religion to yourself."
Maybe it's my age. Maybe it's part of my journey. Maybe it's all those years of praying for boldness. Maybe it's the Holy Spirit. Probably, it's all of those things colliding beautifully.
I'm coming to a place where I take a deep breath... and disagree. (In the nicest, calmest way, mostly.) I push aside the internal shaking, the edge of fear and speak up with the point of view that nobody wants to hear. I hear the niggling worry of "They won't like me anymore" and remind myself that real friends are just that ~ real. (Honesty holds a pristine, priceless value to me.) So, I tamp down the questioning and feel my soul fall to its knees, groping for the right words that trickle from the Throne.
Sometimes I feel a miniscule nudge toward action ~ to pray right then. I must. I've learned that the "little" nudges can get drowned out, if I let them. Now is better than later. Inwardly I repeat my child-rearing mantra, "We must learn to obey immediately," and I strive to obey at once.
The more I walk this way; the more I crave others to do the same. I gaze back over the meaningful encounters in my life and I can see in my mind's eye, the times people prayed for me, the moments the Truth was spoken "like apples of gold in pictures of silver." (Proverbs 25:11 refers to a word that is "fitly spoken" truly being the perfect complement to a situation.) The Spirit worked and spoke because someone broke through the status quo.
It is real Christianity. It represents genuine friendship. Holding the Spirit's hand in a conversation that ventures beyond the comfortable, acceptable parameters must surely impact people to the Glory of the Father.
