The guys in your science class have been calling your friend names because she’s a little overweight. Rather than stick up for her, you take their side and start throwing hurtful names in her direction. The pastor talked about that in church last week, and you know you should listen to what he says, but it’s much easier to follow the crowd.

It’s hard to always do the right thing, isn’t it? If you feel that way, you’re not alone. Most adults, even those who have a daily desire to please God, fall short of making the best choices. If adults can’t do it, then how can teenagers and young adults be expected to do it?

Casting Crowns’ frontman Mark Hall has a few ideas. Believe it or not, he was a teenager once, too, and he was forced to make choices between the right road and the easy road. He understands what it means to feel the excitement of God at church, only to walk out the door and forget everything he’s just learned. In their latest album, The Altar and the Door, Mark and the rest of his band members touch on that.

“I think the whole idea of the altar and the door is that it’s easy to be a Christian at church,” Mark says. “It’s beautiful there. Everything makes sense. It’s black and white. When you’re sitting there on Sunday morning, you know what to stay away from and what to move toward. Everything seems to work. But somewhere between the altar and the door, something starts to leak out.”

Find Your Own Walk
You leave church excited about making some changes in your life, but by the time you get to school on Monday, things are just not working out.

“It’s like we’re scared to death to try this new life. God has a way of leaking excitement. Like a cup with a hole in it,” he explains. “You have to get your fuel from Him, and you gotta lean on Him. I think one of the reasons it’s easier to be a Christian at church is because we’re enjoying walking with the Lord there.”

Mark reflects on his own life, saying, “It’s like in my church. I sit there and go ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah . . . I believe all this stuff. This is so cool.’ But you know what happens? When we’re sitting there, we’re enjoying the pastor’s walk with the Lord, the worship band’s walk, but it’s not our walk.” And then you walk out the door, and life gets confusing. So what are you supposed to do? Mark has a few strategies:

1. Figure out what you want to do. If you want to draw closer to God and live the life He wants you to, you need to make that decision to start living differently. Mark says, “You need to say, ‘Lord, I don’t have any control over what people put in my mind, but right now I’m going to get in my car and turn on the radio. I now have total control of what goes in my mind. Is this going to help me get me where I want to go? Does this remind me of the old life I’m trying leave?’ It’s not a question of is this music right or wrong. The better question is: Is this wise for me to listen to or watch?”

2. Start guarding what goes into your mind. If you keep putting old-life stuff in you, you reap the old life. Does this mean you need to dissolve some of your friendships? Mark explains, “You don’t ditch a friend as you grow closer to God. You hear people say they need to get rid of friends, like friends are the devil. That’s not the right thinking. You might need to ditch a certain level of involvement, but you don’t have to ditch your friends.”

Mark gives the example of the Friday-night buddies who go in the wrong direction. You might not want to hang out with them in that way anymore, but you can still be friends. Or maybe you really like a guy, but when you’re on dates everything seems to go wrong. You might need to limit your involvement by not dating him anymore.

3. Read James 4:7-8. These verses tell us to lay everything at God’s feet and to resist the devil. Don’t just read the verses once; continue reading them, reminding yourself that God will come closer to you when you accept Him deeper into your life.

When he was 20, Mark started to do just that. He read the book of James because it’s one of the shortest books in the Bible. “I had dyslexia and ADD, and James was only two and half pages long, so I said ‘Hey, I can do this!’ For the first time in my life, I started seeing what it meant to feed myself, to dive into His Word and to let God start pouring himself into me. I was never the same after that.”

4. Question the things you do that might be considered a sin. Mark says that too many times, we look for a line to camp out on. You wouldn’t sleep on a cliff night after night, because eventually you’ll fall off. So why would you keep doing something that isn’t completely pleasing to God? Eventually, you could fall away from Him.

5. Check out of the world for a while. Mark specifically suggests a media fast. Take a few days without television, radio, computer, MySpace, cell phone or your iPod. Spend time with God after school without all of your usual technologies. That quiet time will give you more time to think about the important things in your life.

6. If you get off track, get right back on. Mark admits that he needs to do that every day. “I get in a place, and I realize, How did I get here?” If you really want to live a life that’s pleasing to God, get out of bed and try again the next day. You’re not a failure if you tried it one day, and it didn’t work. You’re human!