The Spirit of Spontaneity

Ever since I read Donald Miller's book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years I have attempted to be more spontaneous. Miller's book discusses the idea that life is a story with God as the creator author. Miller had fairly large success with his book Blue Like Jazz and consequently had movie producers want to make a film about his life. During the process of making the movie and rehashing his personal experiences, Donald Miller realizes that his life is not that great of a story. The book calls us to look at how we are living our lives, who the characters are, what our goals are, and if we are going with or against what God as the author has written for us, and continues to write for us.

With that said, I have come to agree with Donald Miller that one can look at life like a story. Ever since I have read this book (which is not too long ago, so I will see how well I am doing a few months from now) I have tried to go where the spirit was calling me, attempting to live life, not just watch it fade by. Movies are great, I have a huge collection of movies. Don't you think however that living out a story would be much more interesting than watching one unfold on screen? Enter the spirit of spontaneity. I have come to enjoy these past few weeks moments of spirit driven spontaneity with friends and family. Last week I went on a creek hike with my friend and roommate Nathan. We spent the afternoon walking through the creek, looking under rocks, picking flowers, and walking through fields with God's beautiful nature around us. From that spontaneous hike with Nathan, we were able to have one final adventure together, talk about college, our future, and anything else that was on our minds. After that walk I was not worried at all about whether or not Nathan and I would remain friends. Through the past week other moments of spirit driven spontaneity have come up and each one has solidly built upon a relationship of mine. Moments have included visits to grandparents, bike rides with my dad, taking my sister out for desert, dancing with my girlfriend in a parking lot, and late night walks. I feel like since I am embracing my story that God has written for me, I am more fully able to reap the benefits of that story.

So I ask you and myself, who are the characters that we have in our stories, what are our goals, what activities come up most in our stories, what do we fight for? Similarly, who are the characters that God wants in our stories, what are God's goals for us, what activities does God want us to be paying attention to, what does God want us to fight for? Do we spend more time talking about others and what they have done or do we take matters into our own hands? Are we selfish with our gifts and talents that God has given us or do we open our hands and give them to God? Do we actively pray for guidance and intercession in others lives, or do we think that we know best? The list goes on and on. There is no reason to fight the creator author God and attempt to write our own story. God is much better at writing than we are and has greater ideas for us. We don't know what triumph and trials we will go through if we follow God's story for us, but if we attempt to follow God's plan, we will be actively living.