I’ve been dying to tell you about this book I’m reading. It’s called A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, by Donald Miller (who wrote a very popular memoir called Blue Like Jazz a few years ago). It’s the sort of book that makes me want to nudge the person next to me and say, “Listen to this!”

In the book, Miller explores what makes a good story, something he had to think about a lot when he was approached by a team of filmmakers who wanted to make a movie out of his memoir. To make a good movie, though, they had to change some things around in order to make his life a better story, which led Miller to the realization that the elements of a really good story are also the elements of a really good life. If you want to live a better life, he suggests, you have to live a better story.

I’m intrigued by this, though I have my reservations (usually, a really good story ends with a riding-off-into-the-sunset fairy tale ending, while life – even a really good one – rarely does). I do like the notion that we get to decide what we do with our lives, and that we ought to seek out the story we want to be living.

The scriptures for Sunday seem to encourage this kind of reflection, too. The letter to the Colossians (3:1-11), challenges us to set our minds on things above, living on earth while being mindful of heaven. In Luke 12:13-21, Jesus tells a parable about a rich farmer who has an unusually abundant crop and decides to hoard it all for himself. Jesus reminds us that “one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” So, what does your life consist of?

What kind of story are you living?