KMF: Wherever You Are, Be There 100%

So how do we avoid getting stuck? How do we continue to make progress towards the big things God has called us to do — especially when we aren’t even sure of what those big things are yet? The first answer to that question is provided by Jim Elliott, one of the five young missionaries martyred by the Auca Indians in South America. He wrote, “Wherever you are — be there 100%.”

This answer may surprise you. You might have expected us to say something like having big goals and vision were the most important things. However, according to the Bible, focused attention on the present is the key to forward momentum.

In the Gospel of Matthew Jesus shares the Parable of the Talents. In this story a nobleman gives each of his servants a certain amount of money before leaving on a journey. Upon his return two of the servants report that they had put his money to work and doubled what he‘d given them.

The master responds by commending each of these servants, saying, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.” The Gospel of Luke clues us in that the “much” he sets them over ends up being entire cities. You couldn’t ask for a better promotion than that.

God’s promise to us in this parable is that if we are faithful to develop what He has already given us to do, He will respond by putting us over something bigger and better. That means that no matter where you are you can start today to prepare for big things by throwing yourself 100% into whatever you have in front of you. People who are busy making the best use of their current circumstances are guaranteed to see their circumstances change. We have God’s word on that.

Keep Moving Forward

Keep Moving Forward


As we finish up the second week of 2008, many of us are still setting goals for the upcoming year. This post (possibly a series of posts) is intended to encourage and challenge you to take the next step. God bless you all!

Thomas Huxley was wrong about a lot of things, but he was right when he wrote, “The rung of a ladder was never meant to rest upon, but only to hold a man’s foot long enough to enable him to put the other somewhat higher.”

Theodore Roosevelt’s life is an amazing example of a man who lived every day as if it were his last, worked every job as if he’d never have another, and in the end found himself as President of the United States. He neither despised the day of small things nor got stuck before he’d reached the peak of his potential.

Solomon wrote in the book of Proverbs, “Do you see a man skilled in his work? He will serve before kings. He will not serve before obscure men.” That certainly was the case with Teddy Roosevelt who gave everything he had to everything he did. Obscurity cannot succeed in hiding a man like Roosevelt — and it never will.

Most of us, however, are not so passionate, tending to get comfortable just living life and getting by — neither giving our current activities the energy they deserve nor dreaming of anything better than what we already have. We stop exerting ourselves and get comfortable halfway up the ladder. Or, to use a different analogy, it is as if we are sitting on a stepping-stone in the middle of a stream. We’re comfortable, yes, but we were never intended to get cozy on a stepping-stone. Our ultimate goal is to cross over to the other side.

Jason, a twentysomething from Florida, wrote us to share how that lately he’d grown complacent with his life, just working his job and getting by. “Not that a steady working life isn’t God’s plan for some,” Jason wrote, “but I was feeling empty and knew that God had more abundant plans for me. I knew He had some hard things for me to do.” Jason concluded by sharing that he was now planning to switch gears and attend law school, with the goal of advocating for pro-life groups. He realized that he was getting stuck far below the potential God had given him. He knew it was time to step up to the next rung of life’s ladder.

Over 100 years ago a young woman named Mary from the town of Dundee, Scotland, lay in bed pondering the brave adventures of the great explorer, David Livingstone, who had just been buried in Westminster Abbey. Then she remember his famous words, “I don’t care where we go as long as we go forward.”

Go forward, thought Mary to herself. I’m not going forward. I’m not going anywhere. I’m twenty-seven years old, I work in a cotton mill twelve hours a day, six days a week, and the little spare time I have I spend helping out at church. But that’s not enough. There has to be more to life for me. She rolled over and prayed, “God, I want to go forward like David Livingstone. Send me somewhere, anywhere. Just send me out to be a missionary.”

This praying girl’s full name was Mary Slessor and she went on to spend thirty-nine years among the unreached tribes of Africa’s Calabar region. Braving sickness, danger, and death on all sides, Mary never stopped moving forward in her quest to reach the lost souls of Africa with the life-giving gospel of Christ — becoming the cherished “White Ma” to entire tribes and an inspiration to thousands of missionaries to come. She choice to move forward radically altered the course of her life and the souls of countless people.

In the words of C.S. Lewis, “further up and further in.”

WDHT: Living the Greatest Adventure

WDHT: Living the Greatest Adventure



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 expediency, but on the basis of what they believed was most pleasing to God. These are the men and women who stuck to their convictions despite the cost.


Your Risks Will Be High

Amy Carmichael, who spent decades as a missionary to India, wrote, “It does not seem to me honoring to our Master, this missionary habit of going by the easier rather than the harder way, when He chose the harder. It is as if we put ourselves a little above Him.”

Theodore Roosevelt, the great American president who went from a weak and sickly child to a powerful and energetic man, later wrote that the highest form of success would go only to the man who “does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil.”

It reminds us of a movie we once watched, where the rich, pampered young man pleads with his father to let him go to war. “I deserve to know dirt and sweat and courage and honor,” he cried. “I deserve to know.” He recognized that he was wasting his life idleness and he longed for something greater. Despite his access to comfort and ease he realized that his best life would be one spent daring greatly for a cause bigger than himself.

Nowhere is the more true than in our relationship with God. The life of a true follower of Christ is the greatest adventure we could ever hope to embark on, but it’s also very hard. John Piper writes, “your life will be hard, your risks will be high, and your joy will be full.” This is a beautiful paradox in which our best life is one spent daring and risking greatly for the cause of Christ.


Joyfully Embracing Hard Things

If you can take only one thing from this series, take this: Our greatest joy and satisfaction comes not from avoiding hard things but from joyfully embracing them. This is how the same Jesus who said, “If anyone would come after me let him deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow me,” could also say, “for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Following in Christ’s footsteps is hard, but it’s good — and He is the ultimate example to us of an extraordinary life spent doing hard things for the glory of God.

Our big, crazy idea is that this is the life God has called us to live now — not ten or twenty years from now, but right now, as teenagers. This is your best life, not your easiest life; the only way to avoid wasting your teen years and ultimately your life.

God’s Word tells us to contend for the faith (Jude 1:3), to build ourselves up (Jude 1:20), and to be diligent (2 Peter 3:14). We are told to be sober-minded and watchful, to resist the devil (1 Peter 5:8-9) and to hold fast our confession of faith (Hebrews 4:14). More than that we are commanded to strive to enter God’s rest (Hebrews 4:11), to flee youthful passions and to pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace (2 Timothy 2:22). We are described as good soldiers, trained athletes, and hard-working farmers (2 Timothy 2:1-6). We train, toil, serve, practice, watch, persist, flee, pursue, fight, take hold, run, and stand firm.


Something to Give Your Life To

If you want something that you can give your life to, this is it. This will ask for all of you and give you back more than you could ever imagine.

This is what Jim Elliot was speaking of when he said, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

This is what Christ promised when he said, ““He who would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.”

This is what G.K. Chesterton was talking about when he wrote, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting, it has been found difficult and left untried.”


God’s Very Best, For You

Our dream is that our generation would be made up of those who find the Christian ideal difficult and yet still try—knowing that the loving God who would never leave us as we are and who desires our growth, will also delight with the first feeble, stumbling effort you make tomorrow to do the simplest hard thing for His glory.

George MacDonald, a great Christian writer, pointed out that every father is pleased at the baby’s first attempt to walk, but no father would be satisfied with anything less than a firm, free, manly walk in a grown-up son. In the same way, he said, “God is easy to please, but hard to satisfy.” And why would we ever want God to be satisfied with anything less than the very best for us?

WDHT: Don't Waste Your Life

WDHT: Don't Waste Your Life

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 object their entire lives, and whose flesh has become completely translucent. That is a picture of what we’re asking for when we desire a life of ease.

John Piper, in his book Don’t Waste Your Life, shares this story:

I will tell you what a tragedy is. I will show you how to waste your life. Consider a story from the February 1998 edition of Reader’s Digest, which tells about a couple who “took early retirement from their jobs in the Northeast five years ago when he was 59 and she was 51.

Now they live in Punta Gorda, Florida, where they cruise on their 30 foot trawler, play softball and collect shells.” At first, when I read it I thought it might be a joke. A spoof on the American Dream. But it wasn’t.

Tragically, this was the dream: Come to the end of your life—your one and only precious, God-given life—and let the last great work of your life, before you give an account to your Creator, be this: playing softball and collecting shells. Picture them before Christ at the great Day of Judgment: “Look, Lord. See my shells.” That is a tragedy. And people today are spending billions of dollars to persuade you to embrace that tragic dream. Over and against that, I put my protest: Don’t buy it. Don’t waste your life.

We don’t want to waste our lives. That’s why we do hard things, and why we challenge you to do hard things as well.

Theodore Roosevelt said it best when he said, “a mere life of ease is not in the end a satisfactory life, and, above all, it is a life which ultimately unfits those who follow it for serious work in the world.” Such a life is a tragedy — a wasted life.

When we fail to do hard things, we not only disobey God, but we set ourselves up to fall short of our true, God-given potential. Even worse, we act as if God is not worthy of our effort — or as if He is unable to accomplish through us what He has called us to do. These are strong words, but we say them because there is something we want you to avoid.

We want you to avoid being like Moses, who when God called him to lead the people of Israel said, “Oh, my Lord, I’m no speaker” and kindled God’s anger.

We want you to avoid being like Jeremiah, who when God called him to be prophet said, “Ah, Lord God! I’m just a kid” and God rebuked him to his face.

We want you to avoid being like the lazy servant in the Parable of the Talents, who failed to invest his Master’s gifts and was thrown out into the street.

We say all this because we want you to glorify God. And God isn’t glorified when His children limit themselves to what comes easily for them. He isn’t glorified when His children aren’t willing to do hard things. The Christian calling is hard, but it is also the only calling worthy of such extraordinary effort. It’s the life you were made for.

WDHT: Meet the Enemy Within

WDHT: Meet the Enemy Within

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 tiresome, and contrary to the natural bias of our flesh.”

Doing hard things is a fight with our own sin nature, our own natural tendency to take it easy and just get by, our inherent disposition to go with the flow and to take the path of least resistance. That’s why it’s hard.

In the Romans 7:21-25 the Apostle Paul talks about this nature that wages war against his desire to obey God:

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

The Bible alone gives us the real explanation about our tendency to take the path of least resistance, even though doing hard things is in our best interest.


Good Creator, Fallen Creatures

Imagine for a moment a country where the laws are designed to reward hard work and where almost anyone can advance in society or career if they only care to apply themselves. You could only conclude that there must be a wise and good ruler. Now, if the inhabitants of that country refused to apply themselves, would you say the problem was with the ruler? Of course not. In the same way, the fact that we are so eager to avoid doing hard things — even when effort is the way God designed us to grow — means that there is a good Creator and fallen creatures.

God’s design is good, but it has been corrupted by our sin. We were made to grow through effort. The corruption of our nature is laziness. What better way to undermine God’s plan for us than to make us avoid His means for growth?


Platinum or Bronze?

Of course, it might sound more appealing to sign-up for a less “extreme” version of the Christian life. Instead of the Platinum “Do Hard Things” Membership, our sin nature offers us something more along the lines of the Bronze “Go to Church Every Week” Membership. Lesser benefits for lesser effort. Sounds good, right? But Scripture doesn’t leave that option open to us.

Writes C.S. Lewis: “It is hard; but the sort of compromise we’re hankering after is harder—in fact, it is impossible… We are like eggs at present. And we cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.”

In other words, we can’t just go on being ordinary, decent Christians, giving God part of our lives while holding back the rest. Either we are hatched and learn to fly or we are a dud that will soon start to stink. The ironic thing here is that although the hardest thing — the almost impossible thing — is to hand over our whole selves to Christ, it is far easier than what we are trying to do instead.


Hard Things or Harder Things?

What happens when we follow our sinful tendency to avoid hard things? The answer is that hard things come to us. It’s like the guy who won’t go in to the gas station to put some air in slightly deflated tire, only to have it blow out on him on the freeway when he’s late for an important meeting. Maybe it’s even happened before, and he’s already used his spare. Tough luck.

We can’t really avoid doing hard things. We can only decide when to do them and how prepared we will be to handle the hard things life brings our way. You either do the hard thing of getting prepared, or you deal with the harder thing of being unprepared. We either “do it” now, or we end up having to “deal with it” later.

This about a lot more than flat tires and missed meetings. Resisting temptation is a hard thing, but not as hard as dealing with an addiction. Finding and keeping a job is a hard thing, but not as hard as dealing with unemployment and struggling to make ends meet.


Time to Persevere

Of course, our sin nature doesn’t want us to understand this. It wants us to keep on believing the lie that our lives will be easier when we avoid doing hard things. It knows that it’s in trouble once we realize that we’ll always be better off when we choose to say no to sin and choose to do hard things for God.

But like Paul says, our sin nature doesn’t sleep. It’s not a matter of some one-time victory. It’s a constant battle. You see, our sin nature knows what’s ultimately at stake. It’s not your test for school or the tires on your car, it’s your whole life.

Starting in Part Three, we’ll take a look at the glorious life God wants you to live.

Why Do Hard Things?

Why Do Hard Things?

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 to serve God with “total abandon.”

We’re used to that kind of talk. It’s almost cliché.

But has anyone ever told you that God commands you to do hard things? For some reason that sounds more extreme. Being “on fire” or “sold out” for God sound like positive emotional states where nothing can really get to us. Even serving God with “total abandon” doesn’t make us feel uncomfortable as long as we leave it general and vague. But “do hard things” sounds so — well, hard.

We don’t like hard things in our society, especially as teens under the influence of the Myth of Adolescence. We avoid hard things as much as possible. Unfortunately (or should we say, fortunately), there’s no avoiding them in the Bible.


Hard Things in the Bible

All of God’s commands in Scripture are hard. Of course, our tendency is to just say that God’s commands aren’t “easy” or that it’s only by His grace that we can obey any of them — and both of those statements are 100 percent true — but why can’t we ever come out and say that God’s commands are hard? When Christ commands us to love our enemies, why can’t we just call it what it is?

Everything God commands is hard. Repenting is hard. Forgiving is hard. Turning the other cheek is hard. Overcoming sin in our lives is hard. Honoring our parents is hard. Sharing the gospel is hard. Reading our Bibles is hard. We could go on.

Part of our hesitation to call things hard can be that we’re afraid to come across as unspiritual. After all, if we’re truly “on fire” for Jesus, shouldn’t it be easy for us to read our Bibles every day, say no to sin, and share the gospel with others?

But when we think that way we’re missing something huge that God wants to teach us about personal growth — and that’s what we want to talk about in this post.


The Way We Grow

In James 1:2, we’re told to consider it “pure joy” when we’re faced with challenges, trials, and obstacles, because they test our faith and makes us stronger. Think about that. The God who created you and loves you cares about your growth — and the way He has designed you to grow is through challenges.

It’s just like the way your muscles grow stronger when you work out and the way your brain grows new neurons when it is challenged. You grow stronger, in both character and competence, when you do hard things.

In order to do hard things we need to get over the idea that God’s love means He wants us to go through life with as little effort or discomfort as possible. This is similar to the mistaken notion that we don’t need to change because God loves us just the way we are. God does love us just the way we are, but He also loves us too much to leave us the way we are. He wants us to grow.

Of course, none of this is to say that God wants us to live joyless and pain-filled lives, but it’s a joy that’s rooted in more than our temporary circumstances, and at times pain is necessary in order to gain something of greater value.


A Radical Argument

The Rebelution makes what sounds like a radical argument. It’s not just saying that hard things happen and that you can benefit from them. It’s not even just saying that you have the ability to do hard things. It’s telling you that you should do hard things because it’s the best and only way to experience true growth in your life.

Can you think of any period of growth in your life (as a Christian, student, athlete, musician, etc…) that didn’t involve effort and even some level of discomfort? The truth is that all growth involves discomfort. Think of growing pains.

These are not a new ideas. We’re don’t want to reinvent truth. But we do want our generation rediscover what has always been true — and one thing that has always been true is that in order to grow we must do hard things. We must challenge and stretch ourselves, step outside our comfort zones and do something difficult. It’s how we’ve grown before, and it’s the only way we’ll grow for the rest of our lives.


Coming Up…

So why is it so hard to do hard things? If God commands us to do hard things and tells us that it’s how we grow, how can we refuse? The answer is that there is another player in this battle over our lives. We’ll look at that in Part Two.

Do Hard Things according to Kyleigh

Do Hard Things According To Kyleigh

Teens in today’s world tend to give up too easily, and just do things that come easily. But who am I to be talking about this? Just today I was giving up, and then I was reminded of the motto of The Rebelution.

I call myself a Rebelutionary, yet today I was meeting all my low expectations and being who I don’t want to be. I was reminded as I got online this evening, that we’re supposed to Do Hard Things.

After all, we can do all things through Christ, right? So what’s the big deal? Why do we give up so easily? All we need to do is ask God for help, then try again. 1 Timothy 4:12 says, “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young.” We’re supposed to set an example for everyone. We, as youth, can encourage people with our faith, both people younger than us and older.


Living Do Hard Things

This afternoon, I pulled out my guitar and practiced. I struggled with a song, did it again, and it got a bit easier. Then I realized that over the past year nothing in my playing had changed. I hadn’t gotten any better, if anything, I was worse. Why? Because I didn’t want to do hard things and keep going through the books myself. So now I’m going to have to start again at the beginning. Well, Grade 2 anyway.

Then I played the piano. I gave up on a song that had been annoying me to no end for almost a week now. Then this evening I sat down, determined to play it, and played it through. It’s funny, how when we’re so determined to do something, we often end up doing it. It’s all a matter of really trying.

I tried to draw a person today. And yesterday. A person with their arms somewhere but down. I guess I just need more practice. So tomorrow, or the next time I sit down and draw, I’m going to just practice arms. Prayer and practice make perfect.

Then I gave up on my writing. I didn’t hit writer’s block, just a little rut. I’m out of it now, I just had to shut off my music — which usually helps me write — and think a little harder. I’ve thought much harder before. Sometimes we think that pushing ourselves will make us explode. Haha! Aren’t we funny?


Closing Thoughts

A couple things I want to pull out from a Rebelution article: “If you always do what you’ve always done, then you’ll always get what you’ve always had.”

Isn’t that true? If I keep up with just playing the guitar stuff I have now, I’ll keep getting disappointment. I’m not going to get where I want to go unless I start going there. You reap what you sow.

Well, I’ve got to run. But remember, don’t give up so easily. Do Hard Things. We can do anything through Christ. Now go out there and… and… and build a spaceship!

About The Authoress: My name is Kyleigh. I’m thirteen-years-old. Some would call me short, others vertically challenged. I am wonderfully made. I’ve been called nerdy, freaky, dorky, and weird — I can’t help that God’s given me a desire to learn. Other than learning, I love history, dance, fencing, music (I play guitar and piano), animals, and God and the love He’s given us