Few recent books have helped communicate the transforming power of understanding our lives as a story than Donald Miller’s A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life (Thomas Nelson, 2009).  While working on the movie adaptation of his previous memoir-like book Blue Like Jazz, Miller discovers that what makes for a compelling story is the same thing that makes for a compelling life. He begins the book with this provocative short scenario:

If you watched a movie about a guy who wanted a Volvo and worked for years to get it, you wouldn’t cry at the end when he drove off the lot, testing the windshield wipers. You wouldn’t tell your friends you saw a beautiful movie or go home and put a record on to think about the story you’d seen. The truth is, you wouldn’t remember that movie a week later, except you’d feel robbed and want your money back. Nobody cries at the end of a movie about a guy who wants a Volvo.

But we spend years actually living those stories, and expect our lives to feel meaningful. The truth is, if what we choose to do with our lives won’t make a story meaningful, it won’t make a life meaningful. [1]

In short, Miller confronts the readers with the question, are we living a good story or have we settled for something far less? Continue reading →