"Do Hard Things" pages 113-135

Total for week": 101

This book gives a lot of ways to help you start doing hard things, but in this chapter it gives excuses that people think of as to why they fail when attempting big things. The first one was procrastination, which I'm sure every teenager can relate to because this is what many kids in school live by. It's so much easier to committ to something when you're talking about doing it in the future instead of right now. The second thing is inconsistency, which is another thing that many people can relate to. It's so hard to keep perfect consistancy if it's something that we don't particularly want to do. I see this alot with teenage Christians who are trying to be the best they can be. They start reading their Bible and praying for a few days then they forget for a while then when something reminds them of it then they do it again in spirts. The third one is compromise, which is one of the hardest things to do in life. Compromise involves someone to lose their plans and incorporate the plans of others in their own. Begrudging is another thing that keeps us from doing hard things for God. We may agree to do something that we don't neccessarily want to, but we don't do it with a good attitude, to let people know that we did this even though we didn't want to. The last thing that keeps us from doing small things is cheating. Cheating is a huge problem in the teenage world involving school and being a Christian. People may say that they did something good, when they didn't really do all the work to get to that point. These are things that we need to overcome in order to accomplish anything in life.

"Do Hard Things" pages 81-112

In these pages they went over three zone breakers of teens who do hard things. The first one was that we see God through them even if they have inexperience to accomplish big things. Number two was that we see them disregarding their fear and taking the first step then letting God give them more opporunities. The last zone breaker was that we see them risk failing or looking dumb. These are the zone breakers that Seth and Ian did in order to succeed in their big plans.

They also gave some forms of fake encouragement that people might try to give you if you're considering trying these zone breakers. Some people might say that you're okay just the way you are so why work to improve yourself? Others might say that compared to some people, you're not that bad. A lot of people that I know try playing the comparing game, trying to convince themselves that they're good people compared to those who do drugs and drink all of the time. I try not to compare myself to the expectations of others because that's a good way to stoop down to the morals of those around them instead of going by their own standards.

"Do Hard Things" pages 34-80

This part of the book defined what "adolescence" actually means. This term literally means "to grow up", which works on two levels. This is accurate in a biological sense because during this time children are growing up physically. This is also true on a maturity basis, because throughout this time of adolescence kids are learning more common sense and how to be mature. Some people might beg to differ because they may say that adolescence teenagers are immature and aren't trust worthy, but this is the time where kids start to develop their morals and personality.

They also had an interesting list from googling "teens and expectations", and they came up with very few good things associated with teenagers. The first few terms that came up were, teens and drugs, alcohol, smoking, drinking, marijuana and cell phones. This backs up their statement that teens are associated with things of low expectations. I was a little insulted when I saw this list because not every teenager experiments with drugs and drinking, so I didn't like how they grouped all teenagers as bad, with low expectations.

Spring Break!

Spring break this year was awesome! I had some troubles getting down to Florida since I was flying alone, but thankfully I made it into Clearwater the night I was supposed to! Then my parents and I drove to Fort Myers and stayed the night in a hotel. The next morning we drove to the airport and picked up my brother and sister in law and my friend. We drove to our condo and got settled in and made our way to the beach! The weather was extremely nice while we were there, except for one day when there were storms, but on that day we just went shopping, which was still fun. For most of my break I relaxed on the beach and soaked up the amazing rays of the sun that we don't get in Fort Wayne yet. We also rented a boat for five hours and took it out into the gulf and walked along the beach there. We went out to eat most nights,where I had excellent food and fellow ship with family. It's sad to have to go back to school, but at least that means we're getting closer to summer!

Doctrine pages 407-447

Total for week: 109

This is the last chapter in this book and it ended with a lot of knowledge. This chapter is called "Kingdom: God Reigns" and it was about just that, the kingdom. The verse that started this chapter was from Matthew 6:10 which says "Your Kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." This verse is probably on of the most popular verses in the Christian world. Part of this verse is the Lord's prayer which Chrstians and Catholics know and pray in many situations.

This chapter talked all about God's kingdom and death. Everyone knows that they will die someday, but many people think that they don't have to start thinking about that until they are close to death. Death could come at any time, no one is guarenteed a full lifetime.

When we die we will go to judgement, every person faces judgement from God when they die. There are two different judgements; one is of a person who doesn't have Jesus in their life, where they will be reminded of every sin that they did and then they have to try to justify themselves by their "good works", and this person will not make it into God's kindgom. The other judgement will be in front of God telling him that you are a sinner and Jesus' righteousness covers your life, and this person will go to heaven and prais God.

Scripture teaches us that heaven is perfect and in heaven there is no darkness and no sin. When we go to heaven our sinful nature is taken away from us; therefore, we are not able to sin there. We will praise God in heaven for all of eternity, which is hard for us as humans to picture eternity.

"Do Hard Things" pages 1-33

I found this book at the Family Christian Book Store and thought it looked interesting. The book is called "Do Hard Things" and we were talking about doing hard things as Christians at a group called student leaders which is a small group of people who are campiagners for campus life.

This book is about two college students who decided that they don't want our generation to have low expectations for young people. They made up the word "rebelution" because they want this generation to rebel against the expectations that young people are all partiers.

This book is very different from any other teen book. Instead of a book about love and the romantic relations between teenagers, this book tells the story of two people my age who went above and beyond the average expectations.

These two guys are twins who grew up in Oregon. They were just like any other teenagers except they just had some big ideas from God about what to do next.

Doctrine pages 370-406

This chapter is called "Stewardship: God Gives" and it is the twelth chapter in this book. It starts out with a verse from 1 Peter 4:10 and it says "AS each has recieved a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace."

Even though Jesus was a poor carpenter he still paid his taxes and gave generously to the poor. Jesus was perfect, and traded his perfect righteousness for our sin and brokenness. He wasn't selfish and didn't believe that his possessions were his.

The book teaches that there are two ways to view life. One is a perspective of ownership, where a person believes that their life is their own and all of their possessions are theirs alone. The other way to view life is by stewardship, where a person believes their life and possessions belong to God, no themselves. A few facts that distinguish a steward are knowing that he or she fully belongs to the Lord. Another fact is that they believe everything belongs to the Lord. Stewards also look over all that God has entrusted to us faithfully.