rebelling against low expectations
Some time ago, I wrote for TheReb about whether fiction is less important for Christians. As Christians we seem to have a problem with thinking fiction—fantasy, realistic fiction, ancient epic—is somehow subpar; that really spiritual Christians don’t bother with it. In fact the opposite is true. Fiction is food for our souls. It broadens the scope of our imagination, lets us see good and evil in...
The night of the last presidential election, I made a poor decision. I looked at Twitter. My feed was full of tweets and retweets rejoicing, mourning, celebrating, or decrying the situation as it unfolded, minute by minute. Praise and blame was heaped on both of the major candidates—and on their supporters. My birthday came just a year too late for me to vote in the presidential election. As I...
You’ve started classes. You’re beginning to fall into a schedule. And most likely you’re creating—or rediscovering—school year habits. Hopefully they’re good habits—starting work on assignments ahead of time; minimizing your time on social media; eating breakfast. Perhaps some of them are not so great—procrastinating schoolwork with Netflix or staying up until ungodly hours. But in all of that...
How do you react when you hear someone talk about Bible memorization? I know for a lot of us, it’s with a vague feeling of guilt. I should probably do that. I should probably do that more. What stops us from memorizing God’s word? There are lots of reasons. I’m not good at memorizing. I can’t remember anything. I don’t have time. I’m going to do that…...
Recently, we’ve published quite a few articles on TheReb about faithfulness in the small things. Different teen authors have tackled the idea of what it means to be faithful in the everyday services which are no less important or less glorifying to God, but can nevertheless feel mundane or even boring. You could call it a rebuke of society or culture or the unrealistic expectations placed on...
There was a time my brothers and I tried to teach my mom to use Snapchat. In general, my mom is pretty good with technology—she even has Twitter and Instagram. So we figured she might have fun with Snapchat. Right? Nope. She kept complaining that she didn’t understand the app, it didn’t make sense, and it wasn’t intuitive. That didn’t make sense to me. Snapchat, I thought, was the most intuitive...
Valentine’s Day was stained with blood. The first thing I saw when I logged into Twitter was the words “school shooting” and “Florida” used in the same sentence. My first, selfish thought was, Where? Near here? And then, Oh no. Not again. Our collective hearts are heavy, not only with the news of this tragedy, but with the weight of similar horrors that seem to come on each other’s heels...
The coffee is steaming hot, its fragrant aroma wafting up to shake the cobwebs out of your brain. Pale morning light filters in the window as you sit down with your Bible and a notebook. Or maybe it’s late at night, and you have your study materials spread out on the bed in front of you for a good half hour of studying before you go to sleep. What now? Before you do anything else—before you dig...
What has God called you to do? If you’re a Christian, you know the first, great, overarching calling God’s given you: to know him, and to bring him glory. We’re to grow in our relationship with God by reading, studying and memorizing his word—and then we’re to make him known to the world through our words and actions. Often, he also gives us specific ways to do that. Maybe he’s called you to...
The stereotypical “youth group” is pretty sad. It usually involves a good helping of cliques, shallow relationships, and lots of drama. Of course there’s some Bible teaching, but that’s not the focus. The focus is massively and unrelentingly on us. Not every youth group is that way. Maybe most aren’t. But that’s the expectation. And that’s what we have to fight. What Are We Looking At? The...
rebelling against low expectations
