It's a normal day in our cafeteria—normal, that is, until a bizarre chemistry experiment transports a prehistoric pterodactyl into our school!

It swoops down and captures a girl in its talons. As others cower in fear, I leap onto the salad bar and dive toward the soaring dinosaur. When we pass in mid-air, I wrench the girl from its grasp. We land in a perfect roll. All eyes look to me. Confidently, I say, "Everything will be all right. I'm here." All in a day's work for a hero.

If I would've told any of my high school friends what I daydreamed about at lunch, I would've been laughed right out of the lunchroom. Or told I watched too many action movies. Which is probably true. After all, I love watching heroes like Optimus Prime, Batman and Jason Bourne save the day. And in those old lunchtime daydreams, I wanted to be just like them. I longed to be a hero.

The truth is, I think my definition of hero was a bit narrow. Recently, I rented the movie Freedom Writers. It's about a true-life teacher, Erin Gruwell, who risked everything to help disadvantaged inner-city students. She was truly a hero.

The Erin Gruwell character showed me a hero doesn't have to run into a burning building or chase a bad guy until he's captured. In fact, she possessed many of the same traits as my bigger-than-life heroes—but more realistically. That got me thinking about five traits that define a hero and how they look in an everyday way.

Trait #1: Bravery
Hairspray's Tracy Turnblad doesn't look like the typical star of her favorite dance show. She's not tall and pencil thin. Still, she pursues her dream of starring on the show. Tracy believes appearances don't make the person. It's a bold stance in a world that believes looks are everything.

Courage and bravery are all about boldly confronting fears, dangers and change without turning back. Sure, that could be facing dangers like pterodactyls or burning buildings. But we're faced with dangers and fears everyday. The danger of someone making fun of our weight or our acne. The fear of not being accepted.

Maybe bravery for you is ignoring the popularity game in school or refusing to believe what bullies say about you and, instead, liking who God created you to be. Maybe boldness is sitting next to the kid everyone seems to hate. Maybe courage is living proudly and publicly for Christ. After all, Philippians 1:27-28 offers this challenge: "Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ … without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you" (NIV).

Trait #2: Sense of Justice
In the true story Amazing Grace, advocates fighting Britain's slave trade meet with a young member of Britain's Parliament, William Wilberforce. To make the injustices real to him, they show him chains used to imprison slaves. The horrors of the trade enrage William. He's haunted by the injustice to the point that he has nightmares about slavery. William then dedicates the rest of his life to abolishing Britain's slave trade and showing others the truth.

Of course, few of us have prestigious positions in Parliament, but that doesn't mean everyday heroes can't make a difference. After all, a 12-year-old founded Loose Chains to Loosen Changes (myspace.com/lc2lc) to fight modern-day slavery. Imagine what you can do. Maybe it's volunteering in your community. Maybe it's deciding not to spread rumors in your school. Whatever it is,

it starts with praying for God to reveal injustice to you—and asking him how you can help bring about change.

Trait #3: Persistence
Chris Gardner is broke. He and his son have to sleep in bathrooms and shelters. All looks bleak. But Chris has hope: He learns about a six-month internship program that will award one person a high-paying stockbroker job. The problem? It's six months with no pay.

Chris is like a man on fire in that internship. He does whatever it takes to do his very best and never gives up.

Persistence for an everyday hero means not surrendering—no matter the odds. It might mean not calling yourself a failure when you don't do well on a test, praising God even when he feels far way, or meeting a try-outs rejection by practicing harder for next year.

Or maybe it's showing God's love to someone who keeps shutting you down. In Acts 5, the apostles are beaten and forbidden from spreading the gospel. What do they do? "Day after day, they kept teaching in the temple courtyards and from house to house. They never stopped telling the good news that Jesus is the Christ" (Acts 5:42, NIRV).

Luckily, our strength to persist comes from God. "We don't give up. Our bodies are becoming weaker and weaker. But our spirits are being renewed day by day" (2 Corinthians 4:16, NIRV).

Trait #4: Integrity
One of Erin Gruwell's students in Freedom Writers is Eva, a gang member. When she witnesses a member of her gang shoot a man, an innocent student is blamed. Eva holds the power to set him free—or send him to prison to protect her friend.

Her decision makes her a true hero.

It's easy to lie to save our own skins or cheat here and there to get by. But integrity means doing the right thing no matter what. For Christians, that means trying to consistently live out the Bible. That may mean going against friends, feeling like the only one who is still a virgin, or being dubbed a "goodie-goodie" for not peeking at the test key on the teacher's desk.

Colossians 3:5-10 sets the bar for believers: "Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. … Rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator" (NIV).

Trait #5: Selflessness
End of the Spear tells the true story of five missionaries killed by the Ecuadorian tribe they ministered to. But this isn't the film's only heroic display of selflessness.

Later in life, the son of one of the slain missionaries meets one of his father's killers. Most people would say he had every right to hate the killer and want revenge. Instead, this man surrenders his personal feelings to show Christ's love. He lives out John 3:30: "Jesus must become more important, while I become less important"(CEV).

When this movie was awarded first place in IYF's movie awards last year, one voter wrote: "Most of us will not have to give up our lives, but we all have to give up something to follow God's amazing plan." Recognizing what temptations, selfish desires or dreams we have to give up—and actually doing it—is a heroic act. And something we have a great model for.

Philippians 2:3-7 says, "Think the same way that Christ Jesus thought: Christ was truly God. But he did not try to remain equal with God. Instead he gave up everything and became a slave, when he became like one of us" (CEV).

That's some hero. No action sequences needed.

Read more from 'Faith & Values'

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