Downward Mobility

Here's another good read if you're in the mood to reflect upon how you're living life in light of God and His mercy and grace and all that:

Interrupted: When Jesus Wrecks Your Comfortable Christianity by Jen Hatmaker

Earlier this summer, I highly recommended her book, 7, about reducing excess and consumerism. In the introduction to this book, Hatmaker says that if you want to read one book of hers, only one, then read Interrupted. It's the story of how God interrupted her life and sparked a decision for downward - rather than upward - mobility.

In her humorous and self-deprecating way, she gives the reader a peek at her spiritual "aha" moment (not just one moment, of course, but a series of them over the course of several months) concerning life in a 1st world country. Most of us are born into the concept of upward mobility and naturally subscribe to it and forget that (or never even know that) one sixth of the world isn't even on the ladder of mobility at all. They are down on the ground, underneath said ladder, with no resources, starving to death at a rate of one person every 10 seconds or so. She became convicted about how the ways in which she was wasting her own resources was contributing to the degradation of others.

((One note: while Hatmaker draws attention to global poverty, she mostly focuses on local poverty, on how she and her husband were convicted to become useful and practical to the homeless population of Austin, Texas. The ultimate product that came as a result of God's interruption in their lives was a new church they created (Austin New Church) that exists to help the downtrodden and is purposefully structured to reach out and bless the unblessed, rather than to direct all of its resources to blessing the blessed.))

I don't recommend this book because I think it will create an "aha" moment for you. I recommend it because it encourages reflection and we are open to that, and God may work in unexpected ways to show us how else we can live in a way that will help others. The literal poor or the metaphorical poor. We are all poor, after all, in our own ways.

It's refreshing to read a critique of the prosperity gospel; it's worth remembering that God's blessings don't always match up with American-style prosperity. But, as someone who thinks that money isn't bad - that we can do a lot of good things with it - I appreciate that Hatmaker frames her story as just that, hers. She raises points that are worth consideration, and she ties those points closely to scripture (New and Old Testament) but she leaves room for God to work within His readers in His own way. She recognizes that we live in a time - and a country - that provides a myriad of opportunities to help others. She simply points out that we should be thinking about how to help others rather than how to help ourselves.

Thoughts?