Do your best and rest.

If you haven't joined us in our "Book Club: Extreme Edition" yet, first read about it in the blog or listen to the podcast.  So, I've finished reading 7, and Meredith and Amanda are still reading.  Are you reading along, too? What do you think?  To spare you of an hour-long read of my complex thought processing, I feel that my very generalized summary of it all would be this phrase, "Do your best and rest."

For those of you who haven't read it, the book is organized in seven easy-to-digest chunks, which is really great for noncommittal readers.  Even better, this format works perfectly for processing and evaluating.  It would be impossible to evaluate excess in your life in food, clothes, possessions, spending, media, waste AND stress all at the same time! Our heads would explode! This book is one of baby steps, of tiny progression, and of gradual change. 

While reading, chapter 3 on possessions messed me up, and food and waste hit home with issues I've already tried to tackle.  But one chapter in particular felt like Jen Hatmaker had spent a day in my head!  She discussed her developing "multiple personality" struggle of balancing all the issues addressed in the 7 experiment.  Being "green" and health-conscious usually butt heads with budgeted spending... So who wins? Is it better to care about supporting companies that don't basically use slave labor or harmful chemicals... or should you spend less money so you can give more to the homeless? My GOSH it can drive you crazy!  So, as Jen concluded in the 7th chapter on stress (and as God was whispering to me simultaneously), just "do your best and rest." 

"Yours are the feet With which He walks to do good. Your are the hands With which He blesses all the world"So first things first, we must DO - You aren't going to experience any change or growth if you literally just sit in your room all day watching Downton Abbey! Can you believe what's happening in season 3, by the way? What are they trying to do? Ruin our lives?! ...So yeah, case in point. We have to live in the real world. We have to face the facts that YES Americans create too much trash, YES we buy things we don't need, YES we quadruple the time spent in prayer in time spent watching movies.  And none of that is going to change if we don't actually DO something. 

Secondly, we have to give God OUR BEST.  (And don't read "perfect") Your best is just the biggest effort you can manage at that moment.  Can I sink a basket from half-court? NO! Can I throw it in that general direction? YES.  God just wants us to attempt some dorky-looking airballs, people.  Now if God needed my best in a pirouette, I've got it down... with no dorkiness.  We have to remember to TRY our best whether or not it's your dumb-looking airball or your perfect pirouette, He thinks you are doing awesome.  And when we are ALL trying our best... now that's what is perfect.   

Like lighters at a concert... "Our power is communal, or it is meaningless"Then finally, we have to give up the control and REST.  We are infants compared to an infinitely powerful God.  We can't expect to change the world with the swish of our replica Harry Potter wand.  We have no power other than the baby steps of our decisions.  As Jen puts it, "Take a little baby step, tomorrow you can take another... We are no good to Him stuck in paralysis."

So if you are reading the book and feeling overwhelmed, or if you are worried that reading it will just be too depressing/guilt-inducing, "Here this: I don't think God wants you at war with yourself." However, He does want us to be challenged and to change to be more like Him. "Love God most, Love your neighbor as yourself. This is everything. If we say we love God, then we will care about the poor."  And P.S., Jen's humor will totally get you through after the times you are crying your eyes out.  Now go READ IT.