A New Story

I'm taking a page from Don Miller's book, "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years" this New Year's Day. Instead of making resolutions, I'm going to start writing a better story for this year.

In his book, Miller tells about a friend who shared with him concerns about his daughter. She was making some bad choices -- spending all her time with an abusive boyfriend, smoking a lot of pot, ignoring her parents and neglecting her studies. She seemed miserable all the time. Miller told his friend that she was living a bad story. He told him that she needed to be a hero in her story, not a victim.

Miller's friend took his comment seriously. He took all of his family's savings (without discussing it with his wife, he was so excited) and decided to build an orphanage. Needless to say, the news didn't go well when he reported his actions to his wife and daughter. However, over time his daughter got really excited about their project. She held additional fund-raisers. She held awareness events for her friends. Eventually she took charge of their efforts and wrote a new story for herself in the process. She became the hero of a story in which she was empowered, in-charge and doing what she needed to be a hero -- doing her school work, being clean, and ditching her abusive boyfriend.

So this year I'm going to focus on the story. I'm going to be the hero of my story and do what I need to do to be that hero. I'm sketching out the climatic scenes of my story this year and backing up to fill in the story that leads up to those scenes. I've even got some inciting incidents that I am writing for myself to push me into my hero role. So, no resolutions this year, just a better story than last year.

For all of you who are looking to live a better role this year, enjoy living the narrative that God wants you to live -- be the hero you were created to be. Happy New Year, Happy Writing.