Peer Pressure

Peer pressure is hard—not just for adolescents, but for everyone. We don’t want to be ostracized and alone. Always surrounded by groups of people, we have a desire for community that can make us reject who we are and what we believe. “Cool contains enough contradictions and illusions to make one’s head spin. But those afterparty moments of honesty, when we know—really know—that we’re lost and going nowhere, are moments of opportunity. Weakness, not success, is our way out. When we feel lonely and vulnerable—when we feel uncool—God is inviting us to a whole life. When we look around and ask ‘What am I doing with my life?’ we can begin to live real lives” (Paul Grant, Blessed Are the Uncool: Living Authentically in a World of Show [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006], 23).