I'm currently reading a book by Donald Miller. He's the same guy who wrote Blue Like Jazz, I think the name of the book is something like " A Million Miles in a Thousand Years". I'm not even half way through it, but I'm getting there. I'm not quite sure what the book is totally about, but there is already some stuff I'm getting out of it.
In the book, Miller talks about our 'stories' as people. That each of us has a story about our lives. There isn't a bunch of us who have fantastic stories as far as our lives are concerned, but we all have a 'story' that we have or are currently living.
He talks about his own life, and how it is devoid of any real excitement. How if his life was made into a movie, it wouldn't have any explosions. I thought about my own life- if they made a movie about my life, there wouldn't be any explosions either. Seems like a really boring movie.
Here's what I'm getting out of the book so far that I want to share with you- whether we realize it or not, our lives are a story. A beginning, a middle, and an end. There are experiences that we are living out on a daily basis that are shaping our story in a certain direction. These things may be exciting, dull or seemingly pointless. But we are living a story, that will eventually come to an end.
Its getting me thinking- what kind of story am I living? What kind of story do I want to live? When my life stops, will I think that I lived my life in such a way that I squeezed every ounce of meaning and impact out of every moment? That my life was lived in such a way that the story that I lived was one that even I would actually care to read about?
No one watches movies or reads books about a guy who went to work for 40 years, retired, and then died. That would be a pretty boring story.
Here's the deal- either I can read books and watch movies about great stories or I can allow the Lord to help me live out a story. A story that is filled with an impact for others and meaning for me. The more I read His story (the Bible), and allow it to change me, I will in turn change my story to affect others in their story. It will change my life, and other's lives also.
Are you living the story that you want to? Does it have the level of meaning and excitement that you want?
You can start to rewrite it anytime you want.
Be blessed
matt
I just finished that book great read!
ReplyDeleteI have to tell you that Don really has had a pretty interesting life as far as I am concerned. If you read his first book, "Prayer and the Art of Volkswagon Maintenance", it chronicles his life of how he got to Portland. I don't know about you, but the path he took and how he has got from where he used to be: living in a garage apartment at his friends house, with a barely able to make it to work jeep to a famed author. I used to do his accounting for him and I, sadly, didn't have the faith in his dream that he did! While I am looking at thousands of dollars of debt, Don was just sure it was going to happen! And it did! When I knew Don and worked with him, he was so much fun to be around, so much laughing and stories in the group. Funny how sometimes, we don't see our story as exciting, when every one of our stories are exciting and matter to God!
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