Life Stories

I’ve just finished reading A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller in which he uses the metaphor of a story to describe people’s lives. Through an introspective analysis his own life, he indirectly challenges us as the readers to turn the camera inward and evaluate our own lives. We are writing chapters in the story of our lives using the ink of the choices we make with every passing day.

This got me thinking about my own story, the life that I’ve lived for the past 24 years of my existence. If someone wrote a book or made a movie about my life, would anyone bother to watch it? Would I?

This begs the question of what truly makes a story meaningful. Great stories all have two things in common, they require the protagonist make difficult self-sacrifices and to take risks. Great stories also happen to have a side effect of being contagious. They make us feel alive. They give us hope.

Sadly, I feel a lot of people have chosen to write relatively bland stories. This isn’t because they have an inherent desire to write a boring story, but rather I feel it is human nature to seek the safety of comfort and stability. Simply put, a boring story requires very little of the person writing it. And let’s face it, nobody cries at the end of a movie about a guy who spent his life trying to buy a Volvo.

There is an undercurrent in American society that has gradually stolen our great stories and replaced them with narratives centered around pursuing an easy life. We have allowed ourselves to be distracted by influences that drive us to climb social and economic ladders, but to what end? Rarely do we even allow ourselves to stop and reflect on where we’ve been and where we are heading. We often find ourselves caught in these situations unless something provokes us to awaken from our slumber, an “inciting incident” if you will. This happened for me when I awoke to the reality that I didn’t really know what direction my life was moving. I have been driving on auto-pilot ever since I graduated from high school, moving from one life stage to the next without a conscious understanding of where exactly I was going. It took a series of events over the past year of my life to collectively form my inciting incident, but looking back I can honestly say that I am grateful that we always have the choice to turn the page and start a new chapter.

In the midst of writing my own story, I have also become aware of the existence of something bigger than me. Donald Miller says, "I believe there is a writer outside ourselves, plotting a better story for us, interacting with us, even, and whispering a better story into our consciousness.” I believe that writer is God who has been crafting a story since the beginning of time and he has extended an invitation for us to play part in it. Each of our individual stories has an important role to play in this larger story if we choose to walk in it. He hasn’t promised wealth and prosperity or comfort and safety, but he promised that he has a great story prepared for each and every one of us. He also promised that it will all be worth it in the end.


What kind of story are you busy writing?