Book Review: A Million Miles in a Thousand Years

“Nobody cries at the end of a movie about a guy who wants a Volvo.”

That single insight, from the first page of the book, effectively distills the wisdom of 288 pages down into one sentence.

In A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, Donald Miller writes of how collaborating on a screenplay based on his life transformed his perspective on life, and then transformed the living of his life. As he thought on the fictional story of his life, he began to see his real life as a story, and that, as the saying goes, is what made all the difference.

He thought about the elements of a good story— conflict, sacrifice, character transformation, and realized that the “elements that made a story meaningful were the same that made a life meaningful.” And as he was rewriting the fictional story of his life, he realized that his own life was his to write, by intentionally living out what a good story would be.

Miller writes in his honest and open style about both his failings and his victories in this memoir, and there is much to be appreciated and pondered over here. I underlined dozens of sentences like the ones above, sentences that ought to be deeply worked down into the soul.

Don’s story is a good story, but it isn’t a great story. Where it falls short of greatness is that Christ is not at its center. Yes, as far as I know Don is a Christian, but his story as chronicled in the book is one that anyone with any belief in God could undertake. I believe that every truly great life story involves the glory of Christ and His Kingdom at the center of it all— the inciting incident, the conflict, the transformation, the climax— Christ must be seen as behind all, before all, the center of all, and the purpose of it all. I’d like to hear more of the story of Christ in the story of Don next time around.

If you liked this post, you might also enjoy:

• How Buying a MacBook Pro Is Like Becoming a Christian
• The Power of Stories
• Which World are You Living In?
• The End of the Story
• Book Review: Notes From the Tilt-a-Whirl