I finished reading Donald Miller’s book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, and am feeling inspired. I heard him teach on this at a conference a couple years ago and it radically affected my life.
He talks about how a strange thing happened when he became a respected, published and successful writer…he didn’t die. His life wasn’t over. He had to keep on going and find out what to do with the rest of his life.
Donald got this idea to think of our lives as a movie, since some people were trying to make a movie about his life, but decided they needed to add some excitement to it because his life wasn’t really exciting enough to keep an audience engaged.
One of my favorite illustrations that he gave was about what we are living for. He said that if a movie was made about a guy who graduates from college, works hard at his job and saves his money…to buy a Volvo, that would not be a good story. A Volvo is a great car, but it just wouldn’t be satisfying to sit through a whole movie watching a guy work and sacrifice and prepare, just to see him drive off into the sunset in his new Volvo before the credits roll. That’s a terrible movie. We’d want our money back.
If we look at our own lives in these terms, things become much more clear, our priorities are illuminated and whether we are living for something worthwhile is suddenly apparent.
I want a Jeep. I’ve always wanted a Jeep. In all honesty, I think the movie would be much cooler if it were a girl driving off into the sunset with her dog in a Jeep.
But, there is no way I am going to live my life to get that Jeep. It would still be a terrible story, kinda fun, but terrible.
In his book, Don talks about people, real people that are friends of his, that attempt insane things – writing to heads of state all around the world (with his kids) and essentially inviting them for a sleep over so they can learn more about each other (many said yes and they began developing friendships), or to give a rebellious teenage daughter a sense of purpose, one father decided that his family would spearhead the building of a much needed orphanage in a third world country – raise crazy amounts of money, find people to build it, take care of those kids.
These are huge things.
We don’t all need to attempt such global pursuits. But what I love about Donald’s book, is that he points out that we do need to attempt things that matter, things that are much bigger than us, things that terrify us, things that make us cling to God and beg him to come through for us.
Only then will we feel fully alive.
Only then will we be living a story with an ending that will satisfy.