rebelling against low expectations
History tells us that our best life is not our easiest life. Those men and women who were of the greatest service to God and to mankind were those who gave the most of themselves; those who endeavored, not to avoid difficulties, but to overcome them; not to seek comfort, but to do what was necessary, no matter how hard. These are the men and women who made decisions, not on the basis of...
This world would have you think that your best life would be a life in which you were able to completely avoid responsibility and effort. But such a life would be as pale and flabby as the body of a man who had never moved and never seen the sun. It could be compared to the strange fish that live in the complete darkness of the deepest parts of the ocean, who never come in contact with a hard...
When we sign on to God’s plan for our growth, we’re declaring war on our sin nature and it fights the idea of do hard things with everything its got. The reason it’s so hard to do hard things is because our sinful flesh wants us to do easy things. Jonathan Edwards, a great American theologian, once wrote: “The way to Heaven is ascending; we must be content to travel uphill, though it be hard and...
We’ve really missed blogging, so we’re excited to embark on a new four-part (for now) series on Why Do Hard Things? — an important question that we’ve thought about a lot lately. Let us know your thoughts! We’ve all heard people say that God wants us “on fire” for Him. Maybe your youth pastor has talked about being “sold out” for Jesus or a conference speaker has challenged you...
At one of our Do Hard Things conferences in Dallas I made the following challenge to the parents in attendance. Alex & Brett thought is was good enough that they decided to share it with everyone here on the blog as well. Read it together as a family if you can and let us know what you think. It’s an encouragement from one parent to another. Parents, the first thing I want to tell you this...
Bre Engel is a high school senior from Indiana. Along with other young people from her church Bre participated in some community service projects and gave a report to her local church. Afterwards she heard a man saying, “Aren’t you glad these kids aren’t out smoking pot or drinking, but are instead doing service for our community?” “That comment just broke my...
We’re all familiar with names like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Adams and John Hancock. These men, along with others, were our forefathers and the founders of our nation. They signed the Declaration of Independence and wrote the Constitution. They won the Revolutionary War. Not only that, but their incredible accomplishments weren’t limited to their adult lives. John...
What’s harder than doing hard things? Doing hard things and failing. In response to my article, My First Shower Nearly Killed Me, a reader named Gracie commented, “The hardest part is when you keep pushing yourself harder and harder, and you still fail. I put so much of myself into this one thing and I still failed.” Maybe you can relate. Like Gracie you’re not really...
One of the most common expectations our society has for teenagers is that we are incurably rebellious. Indeed, it was the “storm and stress” model of young adulthood that served as the foundation for the modern concept of adolescence, sparking the cultural redefinition of the teen years in the first half of the 1900s. But like so many of the culture-shaping psychological studies of...
I’m Just Not A Shower Person I still remember my first shower. It was a horrible experience. I was eight years old and all I had ever known was baths. Baths were neat and tidy ordeals where the water flowed in from below my head and – provided I didn’t splash too much – stayed below my head. I found showers to be an entirely different beast. The water, rather than flowing as a solid stream...
rebelling against low expectations
