Do Hard Things

I think it was the summer of 2008 when I first read Alex and Brett Harris’s book, Do Hard Things. Prior to reading the book, I knew nothing about the twin brothers or the “Rebelution” movement they had started two years prior.

At the age of sixteen, they had started the Rebelution blog as a “teenage rebellion against low expectations.” Their premise was simple: people today don’t expect teenagers to contribute anything worthwhile to society; many don’t even think teenagers are capable of such productive actions. Our society is built upon low expectations for the “tween” and “teen” age groups. The teen years are viewed as years for kids to play, goof off, and shirk responsibility.

The Rebelution changed all that. Through their blog, and subsequently their book, Alex and Brett challenged their peers to embrace their teen years as years of opportunity. The teen years, they said, could be some of the best years of your life if you would only seek out and shoulder responsibility. They maintained that teens could indeed make a difference in their world, if they would only step up, throw off, and refuse to be shackled by the low expectations of the culture.

My mom is fond of saying that she has never had teenagers in her house—only young adults. I and my younger siblings weren’t given the option of going through the “normal rebellion” that virtually all Christian “experts” say is good and healthy and cannot be avoided; we found another way. My parents never talked about the teen years as being a difficult drag and something to survive; it was just expected that we would continue to grow and mature into productive young adults.

So, when I opened Do Hard Things for the first time, no thunder cracked and no lightning flashed. I didn’t experience a dramatic paradigm shift. I did find the stories and examples the Harris brothers used inspiring, but I didn’t suddenly upend my life and start walking in a completely different direction. Yet at the same time, while I agreed with every word in the book, I was at a loss to know how to start “doing hard things” right where I was. I didn’t feel the Lord calling me to run a political campaign or raise money to dig wells in third-world countries or gather shoes for orphans in Africa. (If you’re thinking the same thing right about now, check out their follow-up book, Start Here. They talk at length about doing hard things in the small things.)

The following spring I graduated from high school after being homeschooled through all twelve grades. I wasn’t going on to college in the fall; I had made the counter-cultural decision to stay at home and instead spend my time preparing to become a wife and mother. Going against the flow of what the culture at large—and even the church—expected of me wasn’t easy.

It. Was. Really. Hard.

I figured that doing something so big and so hard should probably have me covered in the “do hard things” category for the next dozen or so years…at least.

I’ve learned not to think that type of thought anymore, because as soon as I do God jumps up and says, “You think that’s hard? Look at what else I have planned for you!”

Paul wrote to Timothy, “Let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity.”[mfn]1 Timothy 4:12, NKJV[/mfn]

That’s exactly what doing hard things is all about, as I was to discover very soon. Keep in mind that the word translated “word” in this passage is the word “logos,” which can also be translated “speech.” That’s a rather important detail.

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