7: An Experiment

A group of girls and I are going through Jen Hatmaker's 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess. It's kinda rocking our world! We've only just finished the first chapter on food, and its been difficult, but a great blessing at the same time. You can choose seven foods that you want to eat for a month (or in our case, a week) and then eat nothing but those foods. My 7: chicken, sweet potatoes, apples, whole wheat bread, eggs, lettuce, and coffee (because coffee should be a food, plain and simple). Honestly its not that hard and I don't feel like I'm lacking in anything, except for the fact that I want to snack...and I would like to snack most of the day. So, I've resorted to snacking on apples, which is wonderful, but I've been going through about three to four apples a day. A day. By myself. That's a bunch of apples. But when you want something sweet, apples are marvelous. So why this study? Taken from Hatmaker's book, "7 will be an exercise in simplicity with one goal: to create space for God's Kingdom to break through." (p 4) I want to have that exercise in simplicity. I want to figure out just how much is too much. It's amazing to think about the fact that most people around the world don't even have the choice of seven foods. They get to eat rice and water, or a small piece of chicken, a day. Sometimes they don't eat one day and hope for food the next. Seven choices are a lot of choices, really. It's humbling to think about all that we have available at our fingertips and all that we take for granted. I have tons of choices in my pantry, and there are thousands of things at the grocery store that I can choose from. This study is really making me focus on the poor and how I can better pray for them. How I can better pray for my Compassion sponsored kids. How I can teach my children about what most of the world experiences on a daily basis. A question Hatmaker asks really hit home with me..."How can we extract our children from this filthy engine where indulgence and ignorance and ungratefulness and waste are standard protocol? Where they know they can throw perfectly good food away because there is always more in the pantry?" (p22). We're so blessed. And we're so spoiled. Our food experiment will be over this Thursday and we'll be moving on to other areas: clothes, spending, waste, possessions, media, and stress. I'm excited for what lies ahead and for what God will continue to teach me through this study. How much is just too much?
Check out the 7 book with us. And if you're looking for a way to talk to your kids about helping kids in need, you should learn about the work of Compassion. I strongly encourage you to do so. www.compassion.com/kristin_mezey
1 John 3:17-18 "But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth."