Live Original (Sadie Robertson) (18 page)

2

I prayed to the Lord, and he answered me.

He freed me from all my fears.

Those who look to him for help will be radiant with joy;

no shadow of shame will darken their faces.

In my desperation I prayed, and the Lord listened;

he saved me from all my troubles.

—Psalm 34:4–6

This passage is great for when you are afraid. I used to be afraid of thunderstorms. I’m happy to say God has freed me from that fear, and He can free you from whatever you are afraid of too.

3

God is our refuge and strength,

always ready to help in times of trouble.

—Psalm 46:1

Memorize this one when you are going through a tough time—like maybe when someone close to you passes away or your parents are going through a divorce. Know that through the trouble God is always there. He is there for you as your safe place, and you can lean on Him for strength.

4

Give your burdens to the Lord,

and he will take care of you.

He will not permit the godly to slip and fall.

—Psalm 55:22

This verse can encourage you when you are stressed because there is too much on your plate. Maybe you feel pressure to make cheerleading or get straight As and you feel the burden of all the pressures of high school. Know that God will take care of you and will hold you up.

5

But when I am afraid, I will put my trust in you.

—Psalm 56:3

Another good one for when you are afraid. This is a statement: I
will
put my trust in you. Memorize it. Just saying it makes you feel better.

6

Then Jesus said, “Come to me,

all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens,

and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you.

Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart,

and you will find rest for your souls.

For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”

—Matthew 11:28–30

You don’t have to do
anything
on your own. You don’t have to handle it all. Jesus wants to take your burdens from you. He’s even talking about the “heavy burdens.” The tough stuff. We go through some hard things on this earth, and Jesus says He can handle it all. He also tells us He is humble and gentle. People don’t always handle the burdens we give them very gently. Some people are downright harsh or mean. When you give something to God, He will handle it gently and will give you rest. This is good news!

7

“I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart.

And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give.

So don’t be troubled or afraid.”

—John 14:27

The kind of peace God gives is much greater than anything in this world. He is the kind of Father who loves to give good gifts to His children. That’s something no amount of money can buy.

8

Letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death.

But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace.

—Romans 8:6

If we put our faith and trust in God and allow His Spirit to work within us, we will have peace. If we don’t have peace, we should examine ourselves and make sure we are living the kind of life God calls us to live. When we live godly lives, even though things will not be perfect, we can have peace through the imperfections.

9

If God is for us, who can ever be against us?

—Romans 8:31

This is a great verse for times when you feel like friends are turning against you or people at school are spreading gossip about you, or maybe you have a teacher who just seems to have it out for you. God’s got your back!

10

Give all your worries and cares to God,

for he cares about you.

—1 Peter 5:7

God
loves
you! He cares about you. He is willing to take all of your worries. We just have to give them to Him. I love the
Veggie-Tales
song that says God is bigger than the Boogie Man. It’s a really cute little tune that basically lets us know there is nothing God can’t
handle and no way He is ever going to leave us or fail to take care of us. He is always watching out for us.

I know it sometimes feels like there’s a lot to get anxious or upset about, but don’t let worry and stress cause a mess in your life. God’s bigger than all of that, and He is
seriously
on your side!

Live Original Challenge

1.
 Have you ever let your mind run away with worry and then had everything turn out okay in the end? How did that make you feel?

2.
 Why is it important to get all the facts before you jump to a conclusion about something and get worried or upset about it?

3.
 Jeremiah 29:11 says God has good plans for your future. Next time you worry about what’s ahead, how can this verse help you not stress?

4.
 Of the Bible verses listed in this chapter to help you overcome worry, which one will you choose to memorize so it can help you stay calm and peaceful?

DON’T FORGET

Don’t worry.

God will help you and take care of you!

What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don’t show it by your actions?

Can that kind of faith save anyone?

Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing, and you say, “Good-bye and have a good day; stay warm and eat well” —but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing.

What good does that do? So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough.

Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless.

—James 2:14–17

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Do Something

O
ne of my favorite quotes is: “Be the change you want to see in the world.” In other words, when you see something that needs to be different, do something about it. You could think about what’s wrong with the world; you could even talk about it, read about it, and have discussions with your friends about how it needs to change. But if you really want things to change, you have to do something.

As teenagers, we don’t always think we are old enough to make a difference in the world. That is just not true. I want to share some true stories of very young children who have made a major impact on the world because they realized something needed to change. And then there’s the teenager whose personal diary from the 1940s still gets read today. Check these out.

•
Alexandra “Alex” Scott was diagnosed with cancer before she was even a year old. At age four, she told her parents she wanted to raise money to help find a cure for cancer. So she set up a lemonade stand—and, with her brother, raised more than $2,000 in one day. After
Alex passed away at the age of eight, her parents continued her efforts. Since 2005, Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation has raised more than seventy-five million dollars to fight cancer and help people affected by it.

•
Blare Gooch cried when he saw a photo of a little boy in a pile of rubble after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, and he wished the little boy could have a teddy bear. So Blare did something about it. He started asking people at his school to donate bears; they did, and then many others started giving bears too. He eventually sent twenty-five thousand teddy bears to Haiti and about twenty-two thousand to other nonprofit organizations. He said, “It doesn’t really matter how small or old you are. If you’re young and think you can’t make a difference in the world, well, you actually can.”
¹³

•
Think about the Jewish teenager named Anne Frank. You may have read her book,
The Diary of a Young Girl
. Even though she died in 1945, in a concentration camp, when she was only fifteen years old, a
lot
of people have read this book. It has sold millions and millions of copies and been printed in more than fifty languages. When people read
The Diary of a Young Girl,
they remember what happened to the Jews during World War II. Because of her diary, this young girl has kept a very important time in history from getting lost or overlooked.

Alex Scott, Blare Gooch, and Anne Frank were all young, but they had huge impacts on the world. In their own way, they each did something about situations that needed to change. For Alex, it
was raising money to find a cure for cancer. For Blare, it was collecting teddy bears to comfort children who had lost everything. For Anne, it was writing her thoughts and experiences in a diary people would read for generations. No matter how young—or old—you are, you can do something to change the world.

IT’S ALL ABOUT ACTION

John Luke has a T-shirt that says, “Don’t say you’re going to do it, do it.” Seriously, people could talk for years about what they want to do, but unless and until they take action, everything stays the same. I love Matthew West’s song “Do Something.” That song tells the story of someone thinking about the trouble in the world and wondering why God doesn’t do something about it—and then the person realizes God did do something: He created you and me. We can be God’s hands and feet. Maybe He doesn’t reach down from heaven in some dramatic way and make everything that’s wrong right, but He created us, and He expects us to do something. He works through us to see what needs changing and to act on it.

One time, my boyfriend said to me, “I wish my school was more spiritual, like yours is.”

Instead of saying, “Yeah, it’s too bad your school isn’t more spiritual. I’m really sorry about that,” I said, “What are you going to do about it?”

I knew he could change the situation if he wanted to.

This is one reason I wrote the chapter “You Can Only Fix You.” If every person can understand how we can start with ourselves
and then change the world around us, amazing things can happen. I hope that the tools and suggestions in this book are helpful, but don’t just read the book, go out and live the book.

You might be thinking,
I am just a teenager, I’ve got my whole life ahead of me. I’ll do something to change the world when I’m older.

But I’m thinking,
You’re a teenager! What better time to make a difference! How great is it that you don’t have to wait until you finish college or have a job or get married to start to change things?

You only live once. You have only one chance to make your mark on this world. If you miss an opportunity to change things today, that opportunity is gone forever. So take advantage of who you are right now. Make the most of the opportunities right in front of you. Take advantage of the way you see the world, with your unique point of view, and use your energy and passion to make a difference. Don’t just notice or talk about what’s wrong in the world, do something to make it better.

THE PEOPLE WHO CHANGED MY WORLD

I have learned firsthand what a difference just doing something can make in the lives of other people and in my own life. When I was eleven years old, Two-Mama took me on my first mission trip. She had taken John Luke the year before, and I got to go with them the next year. We went to a city called Neiba (pronounced “Nay-buh”) in the Dominican Republic, and it changed my life. In fact, I have been going on the mission trip to this place every summer since, and it’s one of my all-time very favorite things to do.

This trip is not something we decided to do after
Duck Dynasty
started; it’s something people in our family have done for years. In
fact, the people we know in Neiba had never heard of the Robertsons until just recently. We shared some Spanish episodes of our show with them, and they think seeing us on TV is really fun. But the fact that we are on television is not a big deal to them. They were sweet, kind, and affectionate to us before they knew about the show—just as they were to all the volunteers who visited them. Now that they’ve seen the show, the way they treat us hasn’t changed at all. We like that. We are not interested in being celebrities to them, we are only interested in doing what we can to help them, meet their needs, and share God’s love when we are with them.