Story

I have this memory growing up when it was about time to go to bed, I'd brush my teeth, put on my pajamas and get into bed but you couldn't call it a day until mom came in to read myself and my brother a book. Every night so it seemed we would take a book off the shelf and our mom would read us a story, these stories were exciting filled with conflict and resolution, wonderful characters who had purpose and you wanted to cheer for them cause you were so engaged into there story. If I were to go to a movie about your life would I be as engaged? What kind of story are you telling with your life, you see we are all living in the midst of our own story but a lot of our stories are mundane and not very inspiring. It seems like we live in a world that has lost the meaning of a good story, I just saw a movie over the weekend that had all the special effects you could want but the story wasn't very good, we have lost the art of a good story.

I say all these things because I'm reading a book currently on story, it's called A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller. Now I hate endorsing a book before I'm completely finished but I think this one is worth it, the book is about writing a story with your life by the greatest storyteller of all God. God has called us to tell great story's with our lives, to live in conflict to always be working toward something that is worth it but the question is what do we desire? What is so important to us that we would die for it? This is a key ingredient to living a good story with our lives. For far too many the story is the American Dream, it's all about buying a new Volvo or building a new house, or how about the dream vacation to Ireland and Scotland so you can play at the Birth Place Golf, ok maybe that's just me but you get my point. So what is something that is worth dying for that can make our stories great?

I would argue that the things that matter are things that take the most sacrifice, relationally, financially, and physically. It's sacrificing your cushy 9-5 job so you can devote your time to building wells in South America, it's leaving your home and job in Central Florida to go be a missionary and live full time in Japan like some of my friends recently did. These are the things that make a story great it's the stuff of movies really, I would love to go see a movie about a guy who leaves his home in Danville Indiana to live on an Indian reservation in Arizona but goes through close to death encounters with the natives, rejection from his family and financial strain to get there. Wouldn't that be a great movie? I would love to see a resolve to a story like this.

So what story will you tell in 2010, I hope it's one that will inspire us all to live a life that is just a little more missional.

Grace and Peace be with you this new year.

Clayton Wheeler