Review of "Do Hard Things" by Alex & Brett Harris from our daughter's perspective...

Today is our daughter, Annie,'s sixteenth birthday so we invited her to guest post today to help celebrate this very special day!!!

Annie was very excited when we gave her this book as an early birthday present last week.  So much so that she finished reading it in just a few days!  Because she spoke so highly of it, we asked her to share her thoughts on Do Hard Things with all of you and she agreed to do it!  We are so proud of her for stepping out of her comfort zone!

I give you Annie's review...

photo credit

The book Do Hard Things by Alex and Brett Harris is written by teens for teens.  It seems that doing hard things is hard for many Christians.  The Harris brothers tell the history of where the concept of "teenagers" came from.  It's a pretty new concept which was created in the early 1940s.

Alex and Brett challenge the thinking of teens and adults in the church alike as they go against the low expectations and stereotypes that society has set for them over the past 70 years, such as...

• Getting outside of your comfort zone
• Going beyond what is expected or required
• Doing things that are too big to accomplish alone
• Doing things that don't earn immediate payoff
• Challenging the cultural norm

What I think would speak to a lot of people when reading this book is the section on "Doing Hard Things that don't ear immediate payoff".  Small hard things, I think, would be difficult for most people because part of doing small hard things like doing chores around the house everyday that seems not very important compared to doing things outside your home where you might get more recognition and seem to make "more" of an impact to the world than cleaning your room.

"You won't make it in the headlines for any of them ('Local Boy Cleans Bedroom and Does Homework!') or waking up looking forward to them ('Oh boy!  Today I get to obey my mom cheerfully!')".

I felt like the part that impacted me the most was the section about stepping out of your comfort zone.  The reason why I have such a hard time with this part was because I always have the question in my mind of "What if I fail?".  What helped me with this in the book was that it said...

"You can't get to success without risking failure."

That quote gave me the motivation to attempt to do more things for Christ and for the Glory of God outside of my comfort zone.  You just have to trust God and take the risk of failure to take a risk to succeed.

I plan on reading Do Hard Things by Alex and Brett Harris again and I will be reading its sequel Start Here: Doing Hard Things Right Where You Are  I also recommend this book to both female and male teenagers as well as adults.

You can learn more about the Harris brothers, their ministry, and their books at TheRebelution.com.

At the foot of the Cross,


Annie Pershing

Annie is sixteen, as of today!  She is entering her junior year in the public high school in her home town where she lives with her mother.  Annie loves Jesus and is very involved in her home church.  She is also a member of her High School Jazz Band, Science Club and Math Club.  We are blessed to have her with us to visit as often as her busy schedule allows!  We really enjoyed our special time with her over the last four weeks, her time with us for this summer.  She is a blessing!!

Book Review-Living with Confidence in a Chaotic World by Dr. David Jeremiah

I continue to be very glad, and blessed to be a part of the blogger review team with Thomas Nelson Publishing. The biggest challenge I am having is managing to find time to read the books…I am working hard to get better at this. It will just take me a bit but in the end the pay-off will be great.

When the book Living with Confidence in a Chaotic World by Dr. David Jeremiah arrived I was less than stoked. To be honest I was dreading reading this book. Dr. Jeremiah and Tim Lahaye were two of the most boring speakers I had heard in a while. I had pretty much written the book off as a bad read based on past associations.

I was rudely awakened as a result of this error.

I was absolutely floored by this book! What I loved about this book was the conversational yet pastoral tone that Dr. Jeremiah took. I felt like I was sitting on my front porch having a conversation with him and felt like I was interacting with him as he walked with me through the issue of fear and dealing with life and stress.

I unequivocally give my recommendation of this book both as a discipleship resource and a counseling tool for those that work with people who are dealing with life stress and even if they just have wild kids.

Question: What are some things that you do to help cut down on chaos in your life?  Are there tools that you use?

Dancing with my wife and kids in the midst of our chaos...at the foot of the Cross...Will

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com <http://BookSneeze®.com> book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Book Review-The Word of Promise New Testament

I continue to be very glad, and blessed to be a part of the blogger review team with Thomas Nelson Publishing. The biggest challenge I am having is managing to find time to read the books…I am working hard to get better at this. It will just take me a bit but in the end the pay-off will be great.

The book I read this time was not a book but a CD Bible—The Word of Promise New Testament.  I have listened to other CD Bibles and was looking forward to seeing how this one would compare with them.  The cast for this project  was quite dynamic with names like Marisa Tomei and Richard Dreyfuss among others.

Sadly,  I found this project to be quite dry and frankly quite boring compared to other projects I have listened to. I cannot specifically say that it was one thing that made me not like the project but more that the overall tone of the project was very dry and lacking in emotional drive that I feel needs to befit the Word of God.
I feel that I cannot recommend this project based on the fact that I feel like the work was not well done and frankly the project was pretty boring.

Question:  If you listen to an audio version of the Bible which one do you prefer?

Dancing with my Wife at the foot of the Cross...Will

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com <http://BookSneeze®.com> book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Book Review-Permission to Speak Freely by Anne Jackson

This book at the center takes on the issue of sin and the need to deal with it through God’s grace by the writer telling her story of struggling with addictions and abuse as she seeks to find healing and peace. She also shares the journeys of several other people as they also find their way to healing.

While I found this book to be quite visually stimulating with the use of illustrations and liberal use of poetry I still found it to be quite incomplete and inconsistent in the approach it took to the subject matter.  While it is important to recognize sin and to ask God to give us grace to deal with the challenges we face we must remember that it is through Christ that we are able to, and are called to,  have victory over sin and not sit in it. (1 Corinthians 10: 13;  2 Corinthians 5:17). To be honest it would not be a book that I would recommend based on the way she dealt with the subject matter.  There is much power gained in sharing our struggles but I think there is even more strength to be found when we, in the midst of our weaknesses allow Christ to work through us.

Question: What are some resources that you use when you are struggling with things in your life?  How have they helped you?

Dancing at the foot of the Cross,

Will

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com <http://BookSneeze®.com> book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”