Of Elephants and Vikings

I just came from the Rebelution Tour '08 in Hickory, North Carolina, and oh my. It was amazing. I learned so much. When I got there I was feeling very proud of my accomplished 'hard' things, looking forward to my pat on the back. As soon as the first session started I was slapped in the face with the truth. I have never done a hard thing in my LIFE! I am going to post a few things from my voluminous notes, but do not take my post as the standard for the conference; I am merely recapping my thoughts. Please go to the conference, even though it may be hard, you must be at one.

A little of background; the Harris brothers' goal and message is 'teens rebelling against low expectations.' In the first session, Alex discussed the "myth of adolescence," and listed somethings that the world expects out of teens today. This list included - for older teens - making bed daily, completing chore (singular) without reminding, and cleaning room weekly also without parental help or reminding. I do none of these consistently. I fail at even the WORLDS standards! How will I ever reach God's standards? Truth: I won't. I must rely on God to change my heart, my sinful heart, into something He can use. Then, I must work. Hard. Though I am excited to see how God will work in my life in the upcoming times, I know it will require work.

Now, you may wonder why I titled this post as I did. Alex started the conference by telling us a story, or rather a truth, about elephants. He said in other countries, elephants are used on farms. The owner will at night, tie a small length of rope to the animal's rear right foot, and tie the other end around a stake in the ground. The elephant will not leave it's tether. Why? Can they not beat over 100 grown men in a tug-of-war contest? This is from my notes:

A young elephant is removed from its mother and shackled to a large tree with heavy iron chains. For days, weeks, even months, the baby will attempt to free itself. After enough time, he gives up hope of freedom, and surrenders to his shackle. He has learned that he cannot escape anything tied to this foot. The owner can then easily exchange the heavy chains for mere twine and a stick.

This is an excellent analogy of out youth today. Once our society has firmly placed the shackles around our minds, we stop trying, and except our 'limits.' The teen years are not the beginning of our lives, and they are not the end. They will, if used correctly, launch us into our future.

After a short break, Brett came and talked about doing hard things. He started out sharing a very humorous and traumatized story from his past. You can read it here. "Growing people will do hard things." What does that (doing hard things) look like?

1. fighting sin - wrong and easy

2. battling discouragement and complacency

3. more than is required - A and B the C of D

4. GETTING OVER FEAR OF FAILURE - nothing stupider than not doing something that worthwhile because you might fail

5. looks different for each person

6. often small things (NOTE: see 'Vikings')

7. your best life - finding it difficult and still trying

Vikings: we all know of them. The Norsemen that terrorized the coast of Europe, undefeated. They attacked in lightning-like forces. Here now, gone in a moment. How did they remain so victorious? They rowed their own ships. Arriving to and leaving an attack quickly was vital for victory, so instead of entrusting one of the most important aspects of their 'campaign' to hired help (who didn't have the drive the Vikings did), they rowed themselves to their battles. (As Brett said, "You know they were ripped!") They embraced their oars in order to develop the muscles required to wield the sword. If they didn't put themselves through such strenuous physical activity, how would they be able to conquer? If they couldn't cut through waves, how would they cut through foes? They had to do hard things in order to do hard things.

This was such an encouragement to me. After all, I haven't done any hard things. Brett said that the small hard things can be harder because we don't find them as important. It can harder to be consistent with your devotions and chores than to do big hard things. I cannot rely on others to 'row' my to my battles; then I wouldn't be able to hold my sword, let alone conquer. I must be diligently developing and building muscles in the small things so I can DO the large things.

We are rebelutionaries... we do hard things.

We are like the rain; there is not only one drop. With each continued drop, the rain increases until it's a downpour. If it rains enough...

there is a flood.

Join the rain; bring the flood. Be rebelutionary!