I was watching the Christian music videos today, as I do every weekend, and the “Dare You To Move” video came on. When I think about it, it is a very deep video, especially when you think of the idea of making a move for God. If you haven’t seen the video, there is a young man standing in a large alley, and he starts running. Very soon after he starts running, you see people start running towards him. Very soon he is running through a large crowd of young people who are all running the other way.

Now by this time you may be asking yourself “what does a kid running through a crowd have to do with moves for God?” or “what the heck does any of this have to do with fish?”

Well, I shall tell you.

When I first started grade nine at the Christian school I attended, we went on a retreat to get to know all the other newcomers to the high school. At this particular retreat they had a speaker come in and try to sway our views away from all of the potential bad things that can happen in high school, and focus us on God. I don’t think it worked too well, but some of what he said has stuck with me. He talked about going against the crowd. He called it the salmon salute.

If you know anything about salmon, they live in the ocean, but when it is time to further the species, they swim many, many miles to the place of their birth to spawn. This takes them up the rivers and streams that flow into the ocean, miles and miles away from the ocean. They have to swim upstream the entire way. It’s a hard thing to do, so I’ve heard.

Christianity is very similar. But you have a choice. That’s where the movement comes in. You have the choice to move. You can choose to stand where you are. You can choose to run with the crowd. Or, you can fight your way through the crowd, up the stream.

(Rob Martens is 20 and from Simcoe Ont.)

Can you think of a time your faith has taken you "against the current" of the world? Was it hard, or easy to do? What made it hard? What made it easy?