A Million Miles in a Thousand Years

I read a book several months ago that continues to shake up my life. This book very eloquently displayed that I was not telling a story worth telling with my life.  As I sat around and thought about it, I got offended.  Why do I care what other people think of my life and whether or not I’m telling a story with that life?  As the weeks went by, I realized that ”I” care if I’m telling a story with my life.  I realized that this author was not saying to impress everyone around me with some mad skills, he was simply saying;

tell a story with your life

If you are telling a story, someone will listen and pay attention.  The scary thing is that you don’t get to pick who is listening; who is inspired by the story; or who is offended, you have to give that control up.  Tell this story for no one but yourself and God, and don’t try to tell someone else’s story – tell your own.  

As time passed by, all this makes perfect sense, I wasn’t telling a story, I was just getting by in life (and still am to a certain extent, I’m working on that though).

If this has peaked your interest, this book was authored by Donald Miller. I have been a reader of his for several years; of his books and his blog http://donmilleris.com/ . He continuously tells his story in such a way that I feel as though he is telling my story.  He demonstrates the human condition in a way that is not offensive; yet he can drive a point home with as little as one word, and you are stuck thinking about that point for weeks. This latest book that has harassed me for quite a while is titled,  “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years”.  I invite you to check it out if this was even the least bit inspiring.  http://donmilleris.com/books/

When was the last time you read a book that changed the way you look at your life?

A little push….

Almost every time that I run alone, I get a thought that I mull over for the short “Keith” time that I have.  If I don’t write those thoughts down pretty quickly after I run, life takes over and I forget not only where I was going with my thoughts, but also what the thought was in the first place.   I immediately wrote this one down and have been mulling it over, ever since.

Many times a comment from a friend or an acquaintance is the impetus for these thoughts.  Two Friday’s ago, an acquaintance from High School posted a quote on her Facebook page that I proceeded to dissect approximately 63 different ways over the 4 hours I have run ever since.  Here’s the quote;

If you’ve never met the devil in the road of life, it’s because you’re both heading in the same direction

If you connect with “the devil”, then leave it.  If not, insert another word that has as strong a meaning as “the devil” does for this person.  (In my opinion, they are all the same type of words, they are all something that truly sucks the life out of you)  Here are some thoughts; evil, hate, terror, the beast, the demon, the wicked, the wrathful, the spiteful, the obscene, destruction, the hellish, the out-of-touch, the hurtful, the offensive, the vile, the corrupt, the ruinous and just plain “the MEAN”.  Substitute your words and re-read the sentence.  Think about it for a bit.

The more I thought about my friend’s statement, the more I agreed with it.  The statement made me feel as though, if I were not experiencing some sort of occasional wicked adversity in my life, then I was quite possibly traveling in the same direction as this nefarious antagonist.  This agrees with me because the times in my life that I have not experienced wicked adversity; I have mostly sat on my hands and lost touch with life – let life pass me by and disconnected from what was really going on around me. 

Two days later I went for a run.  A windy, blustery day for a run.  Leaves had covered anything that did not move.  As I ran and the wind blew, it became obvious – because of these leaves – that I was not running “with” the wind.  The wind seemed to constantly be in my face, as were the leaves and everything else that summer had pasted to the ground.  However, towards the end of my run, the wind did gust from behind and it traveled just a few miles per hour faster than I was running.  I couldn’t hear anything else other than the leaves and wind moving with me. My thoughts went to a place that was of affirmation, acceptance and peace.  It felt like the whole world was moving in unison.  I felt like I was right where I should be.

It was then that I realized, during these times we experience any wicked adversity in our lives, there are those quick moments that make it worth the struggle.  A little push from somewhere – to attest that you are on the right path.

…running through my mind…