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What were you doing when you were 16? Let me guess: worrying about acne, struggling with a dating life (or lack of), wondering when you would get a car, and trying to decide if it was more important to study for History or hangout with your friends? Thought so. Imagine you decided to put all of those worries behind you and started a website that helped millions of teenagers around the globe.

What were you doing at 18? Let me go out on a limb and guess still struggling with acne, questioning “Do I love her?” when you’ve never even spoken to her, wondering how long your 1976 hooptie would hold up, and trying to decide about college? 2 for 2! What if, after seeing your website have major success, you decided to take things a step further and write a book?

Well, welcome to the life of Alex and Brett Harris. At the age of 16, these twins developed TheRebelution.com, an online portal that encourages teenagers to rebel against the low expectations of society. Thousands of teens pour through the site everyday and talk about life and how they can rise about the “you’re too young to do anything” attitude of society.

At 18, Alex and Brett decided to get the word out to a higher degree by writing Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations. 

To be honest, since the book was written by 18 year olds, I expected it to be shallow fluff (pretty much the same way many of you view this blog). From reading the title, I expected the book to talk about being pure and rebelling against the bad things in high school and living for Jesus. There’s nothing wrong with those ideas…I’ve just read them 2 million times in every Christian teen book published.

Instead, the guys tackled something much more specific and on a larger scale. The book chronicles the lives of several teenagers who ignored their stereotype in society and are currently doing great things for God. You wouldn’t think a 15-year-old could raise $35,000 to build wells in Africa, but it can happen. You wouldn’t think middle school students could run an entire political campaign (and win), but it can happen. These things can happen and they are happening. In fact, every teenager has the potential to do hard things.

Even at the age of 23, I found this book very convicting. It made me shameful of my complacency and tendency to sit back and watch from the sidelines. It also made me realize that my feelings of inferiority are no excuse for doing nothing. 

(In fact, this book was so convicting that I decided to take a “reach” with my job. While reading the book, I emailed Alex and Brett Harris to see if I could get an interview with them for Horizon and Direction magazines. Sure enough, less than 30 minutes later, Alex Harris emailed me and said they would love to do the interview. You can look for it in the Spring 2009 magazines.)

This book is a MUST-READ for every teenager. I usually don’t endorse books because there are very few that motivate me to do something. Most books I read make me think about a few things, and within a few hours, I don’t even care what I read. However, now I find myself excitedly thinking about ways I can do hard things in my own life.

Teenagers, you need to read this book! Parents, you need to read this book! Don’t just sit back and let life go by and wonder what could have been. Step up and attempt some great things! You’re capable of more than you even know!

(Btw, Noblebooks.org has the book for $10!)

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My good friend Ryan Akers just started up his new blog. He is a youth pastor in Indiana with a strong interest in Apologetics. Check his site out at apologeticyp.wordpress.com/

Tags: Alex Harris, Brett Harris, Do Hard Things, TheRebelution