Mike Farris:
Brett and Alex Harris are my guests this week. They will be graduating from homeschool high school this year and are headed off to college, I’m happy to say, to Patrick Henry College in the fall. You guys have come up with a blog a few years ago called The Rebelution, and you’ve just finished a book called Do Hard Things—both of these challenge the low expectations that pop culture has placed on the teenage years. Brett, in your book you talk about teens “doing hard things.” What does this mean and how are you challenging that idea?
Brett Harris:
I think it’s challenging because they already have excelled in many areas and so homeschooled young people’s greatest danger is complacency. Our culture can’t get them to buy into low expectations so it tries to lull them into a false sense of superiority as if they’ve already arrived. And they can become satisfied merely avoiding the bad stuff but not actually pursuing good, hard things for God. So Do Hard Things challenges young people to obey God even when it costs them something. It challenges them to actively pursue God, not just avoid sin, and it encourages them to do what’s hard for them and to constantly fight to grow rather than become satisfied being bigger than the next fish in the small pond they are in, or the top student in their homeschool class
Mike:
Brett thanks so much. This is a really powerful message that you and your brother are communicating to young people, I appreciate it a lot. I’m Mike Farris.
