I got an email this morning from Jen Hatmaker, sending me an advanced copy of her book, Seven, for me to read and review. Cue running through the house squealing like a little kid on Christmas morning (which, honestly, I would have done if Jen Hatmaker had emailed me anything, even if it was accidental spam). Then, because I am blissfully single and do not yet have children, I was able to drop what I was doing, fumble my way through downloading the galley, and begin reading it immediately. I read it all in one sitting, stopping twice for food and once to plug in my laptop so I could keep reading. Yes, it hijacked my day. And yes, it was worth it.
I will need to read it again. I kept stopping and staring off into space while my brain raced at warp speed, thinking through potential implications, applications, responses, excuses, excuse-squashing responses, feeble attempts by the excuses to resurface, repeat cycle, etc. And I can’t possibly review it adequately in just one blog post. So today’s post will be an overview, and then I’ll spend the next seven days digesting one chapter per day.
First of all, buy this book and read it. Seriously. Whoever you are, read this book. Yes, it is written by a Christian and its subject is living out Christianity, but its universally relevant subject matter is that the things we think will make us happy are actually making us miserable and here’s what we can do about it (and even take it a step further and make others happy at the same time!). And frankly, having spent 15 years as an atheist disgusted with the un-Christ-likeness of Christians, I can tell you that an atheist could read this book and be profoundly changed by it.
But wait a second, you say, what is this book? Here is Jen’s description, “Drowning in tension over our own materialism and losing the battle against consuming, we decided to go radical for a year and see what God would do. Boiling seven areas of excess down to just seven choices in seven months, we put our greed and apathy on the table and said, ‘God, transform us.’ Somehow against all odds, the project was completed, the words were written, and Seven is now a book.” The book chronicles the “experimental mutiny against excess” as lived out in the Hatmaker household over seven months. Each month, they focused on eliminating (or limiting) one area of excess: food, clothes, waste, possessions, media, shopping, and stress.
Sound crazy? Yep! Except it’s the kind of crazy awesome that the best roller coaster you’ve ever been on was. You rode that thing until your brain was scrambled and your stomach had flipped inside out, and yet you wanted to get right back on and go again when it was over. Having read Seven, I can tell you, my brain feels scrambled. My stomach feels inside out with the bizarre mixture of fear and excitement that comes when you hear a command from God that goes against culture so radically you just know obeying it is going to be the wildest, most terrifying, most life-changing thing you’ve done to date. And I want to go back, read it again, and experiment with implementing some of the crazy ideas this whip smart, hilarious, fundamentally real lady is talking about.
Seven could easily be a very preachy, self-righteous, boastful book. It most emphatically is not. Jen writes with such a candid self-awareness, such an utterly disarming ability to find vast comedy in her own shortcomings, with such an “everything good is God’s and here’s how I manage to get in His way” transparency that it’s impossible to be intimidated by what is in fact bold obedience and brilliant writing. And though the content could be sermon-y, her writing refuses to be simply read and put aside. I was jumping from “read” to “think” to “do” immediately, often mid-sentence.
This is not just another Christian book to place absentmindedly on your nightstand, to discuss and discard over coffee with your small group, or to read, process, and forget. It is a call to arms that doesn’t feel pushy, and I can’t quite figure out how she managed it. I think perhaps it is that Jen articulates tensions many of us have been feeling for a while, and haven’t really known what to do with. What is unique and important about her approach though is that she goes beyond “here is the problem.” Through this experiment, she offers ways to make room for the Holy Spirit to trounce all over those tensions and get us doing something. This book isn’t a system or a seven step plan to simplify your life. It is a book that will make you think. Deeply. It will make you uncomfortable and grateful for the discomfort. It will make you wonder just how far you are willing to walk in obedience to God, and it will make you excited about where He might ask you to place your next footfall. It will encourage you that there are a million small things you can do now to reclaim the idea of living like Jesus, for real.
I have a lot more to process about this book, as you’ll see in the next seven days. But I can tell you one thing for certain. I’ll bet you anything I will look back at 2012 as the year that happened after I read Seven.
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