"DO HARD THINGS - THE BIRTH OF A BIG IDEA"

Do you want to do great things for the Lord?

From your perspective what would that look like?

The word rebelution is probably new to you. To be honest, we made it up. We combined rebellion and revolution to form an entirely new word for an entirely new concept: rebelling against rebellion. More precisely, we define rebelution as “a teenage rebellion against low expectations.” Do Hard Things (p. 11). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

In the chapters that follow, we lay out in more detail why we think the Rebelution is necessary, what it stands for, and how you can be part of it. Do Hard Things (pp. 11-12). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

When we asked on the blog why teens weren’t rising up against our culture’s low expectations, the response overwhelmed us. “Everyone I know at school is shackled by low expectations,” commented sixteen-year-old Lauren from Colorado. Nate, a high-school senior from Florida, wrote, “Man, did you ever say exactly what I’ve been feeling, well, ever since I became a teenager!” Do Hard Things (p. 12). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

As the conversation heated up, we kept wondering who exactly these other teens were. Some of them we knew, but most of them we didn’t. Were they all overachieving, Type A, head-of-their-class types? When we asked, we discovered that wasn’t the case.

Most described themselves as normal, everyday teens. Some were public schooled, some private, some home schooled. Most lived in the United States; others wrote from Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, Brazil, and the Philippines. How they found us we don’t really know. But most of them were restless. Our questions had struck a chord. Do Hard Things (pp. 12-13). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

A lot bigger than we realized. Just three weeks after the blog was launched, the New York Daily News, the sixth-largest daily newspaper in the United States, wrote a feature column about the blog. “Think Big! HS Twins Tell Peers” read the headline. The column opened with the words,

“Most high schoolers’ blogs are the online equivalent of perfumed diaries or locker-room walls—outlets for teens to gossip, confess and network with their pals. But a pair of 16-year-old home schooled twins from Oregon … are out to change that.” “The teen years are not a vacation from responsibility,” we had told the columnist. “They are the training ground of future leaders who dare to be responsible now.” Do Hard Things (pp. 13-14). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Example -

We chose to apply for the internship, but honestly, we didn’t know what to fear more—getting rejected or getting accepted. An agonizing month went by. Finally word came. We had been accepted for a two-month internship in the chambers of a supreme court justice.

Our primary responsibilities would be to research and proof judicial opinions for Justice Parker. Our start date would fall two weeks before we turned seventeen. As excited as we were to be accepted, we also felt enormous pressure. We would be the youngest interns in the history of the Alabama Supreme Court—possibly of any supreme court. It’s not that we didn’t bring some skills to the table. We had worked hard to become proficient researchers, debaters, and writers. But that was junior high and high school.

This was a whole new level. God seemed to be making us the guinea pigs for our own ideas. Only fair, we see now, but at the time we were terrified. We were leaving home for the first time, and we had less than a month to get ready. We would be wearing a suit and tie every day, which meant several hectic shopping trips downtown. We also had to make living arrangements, and of course we had to let our blog readers know what was going on.

They were excited. Everybody understood that this was a chance for the two of us to try out the ideas our web community had been discussing so intently. It was time to live the message of our little movement—not just read and write about it.

Upon our arrival in Montgomery, we learned that we’d be expected to contribute in a variety of ways, and training would be entirely on-the-job. Though Justice Parker and his staff were gracious and inclusive, we wouldn’t be receiving any special treatment. They had ignored our age when they considered us for the internship, and they would ignore it now when it came to evaluating our performance. We would have to earn trust, and we would not be allowed to compromise the efficiency of the court.

This meant that we started with the basics—picking up the mail, making photocopies, and organizing papers. We also drafted press releases and handled certain e-mail correspondence. Soon we were invited to help edit Justice Parker’s opinions and circulate them to other justices. Every time one job went well, Justice Parker trusted us with more. In fact, his expectation that we could do more was a constant motivation to learn and improve. By the end of two months, we had gone from running errands to accompanying Justice Parker to prestigious events. We had gone from editing opinions for punctuation and spelling to actually contributing paragraphs of final wording, even occasionally drafting internal memorandums to the other justices.

By the time our internship was up, even Justice Parker was surprised by what we had accomplished—and we were elated. Right away another door opened: we were invited back to Alabama to serve as grass-roots directors for four simultaneous statewide campaigns for the Alabama Supreme Court—including Justice Parker’s run for chief justice. The guinea pigs had survived! More important, both of us had experienced our own personal rebelution. And that was just the beginning. Do Hard Things (pp. 15-17). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

But with every challenge, our entire team discovered new opportunities to learn, laugh, and sometimes start over. We also made discoveries about ourselves as individuals. A campaign—like any movement or revolution—isn’t really a faceless mass.

It’s a collection of individuals who join together on the same cause for a reason. It’s ordinary people who decide to step out and be part of something big. That’s when they become extraordinary. Do Hard Things (p. 19). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Example -

We wish you could meet Heidi Bentley, our coordinator for Mobile County. We had met Heidi and her family briefly at the campaign kickoff meeting. In the following weeks, all our communications with her were by phone or e-mail—she was in southern Alabama and we were in the capitol.

We gave Heidi all sorts of big assignments—everything from handing out campaign materials at large festivals to booking facilities and making hundreds of phone calls—and she did an incredible job. We’d often say to one another, “If all of our county coordinators were like Heidi, we’d be in great shape!” But Heidi was not who we thought she was. We had gotten her mixed up with her older sister, whom we’d also met at the kickoff. The whole time we thought Heidi was twenty-four.

The real Heidi was seventeen. Our first reaction was, Oh man, I can’t believe we asked so much of her! Then we caught ourselves. Wait a second! We thought she was twenty-four, so we had expected her to be responsible as if she were twenty-four, and she rose to meet those expectations and acted like she was twenty-four. Heidi was a one-person testimonial for the Rebelution we’d been blogging about.

Our second reaction was, Duh! We’re seventeen too, and we’re the grass-roots directors, for crying out loud! But it was only toward the end of the campaign that we learned something else about Heidi. She had always been extremely introverted.

She hated talking on the phone, her family told us, even with people she knew. Yet we had put her on the phone with strangers almost constantly. Throughout the entire campaign, her family watched in amazement as Heidi jumped way outside of her comfort zone an did things that would have seemed impossible before. Do Hard Things (pp. 19-20). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

The response to the campaign -

Shortly after the campaigns ended, Heidi wrote to us to share what she felt God had been doing in her life: During this whole campaign, God has been doing amazing things. I think I have grown more in these past few months than the whole year before! I laughed when I first read the phrase “do hard things.”

That’s exactly what God began to teach me with the beginning of the campaign, and it hasn’t stopped with primaries. He has taken my perspective of my own capabilities and stretched it three times around a new and bigger perspective. I think I have thoroughly shocked my family by doing things that they (and I) never imagined I’d be doing. It’s amazing what we can do if we will trust God enough to step out of our comfort zones! Do Hard Things (pp. 21-22). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

If you want to do great things for God just stand up for Him.

· What does God expect of us?

Micah 6:8 (NASB95)

8 He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God?

Colossians 1:10 (NASB95)

10 so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God;

Ephesians 4:1 (NASB95)

1 Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called,

Ephesians 5:15 (NASB95)

15 Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise,

Colossians 2:6–7 (NASB95)

6 Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, 7 having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude.

Colossians 4:5 (NASB95)

5 Conduct yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders, making the most of the opportunity.

1 Thessalonians 2:12 (NASB95)

12 so that you would walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory.

SO WHAT??

Believer - how are you going to live for the Lord this week?

Unbeliever - Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand!!