NEW YEAR GAME PLAN
Seven years ago, Donald Miller published a somewhat unorthodox spiritual autobiography titled Blue Like Jazz. Miller must have been surprised when the book became a best seller. He was even more surprised when a film maker wanted to turn the book into a movie with a script that would rewrite Miller's real life story to make it more interesting.
"Every life is a story," Miller wrote in his new book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. Whether your life is "a story worth telling and talking about, though, is up to you. People set out with grand dreams of changing the world, falling in love, doing something amazing. But the drift toward the merely acceptable happens without notice." Even so, life does not have to be that way. Each of us can start from where we are and build a new story for our lives. Miller's entertaining new book describes how writing a script for a movie motivated him to write a new script for his life, a script that he could live out. In this, counselors will recognize the nod toward narrative therapy.
Instead of narratives, I prefer to think about game plans. Every life is like playing a game. The best players always keep learning, improving, playing. They expect challenges and surprises but they know that winning more often comes to those who prepare for the game. At my age I am in the last period of the game but often that is when games are won or lost. I want to keep playing well until the game time runs out. And I want to keep planning ahead. I think about this especially on the eve of a new decade or a new year.
How will you or your clients play their life games in the coming year? How will they plan ahead? How will they fill out the next chapter in the story of their lives? How will they allow God to shape the next decade or period of their lives? Ignore these questions and we drift to the end or go down in defeat.
No one has posted any comments yet.