A Million Miles

A few years ago, a girl I had just begun dating had to get me a gift for my birthday. I suppose she didn’t have to; I should say she wanted to. But what I really wanted – a long, thick gold necklace that I could wear proudly around town – was out of the question. We had only been dating two weeks. You can’t get someone a gift like that after two weeks. It would just be weird.

She ended up settling on a book titled Blue Like Jazz, by Donald Miller. It was a book she considered one of her favorites. It was book I had never heard of, and wasn’t sure I wanted to read. She was right of course – she knew me well even back then – and today that girl is my wife, and all of Donald Miller’s books have a special place on my bookshelf.

I consider myself a fan of Donald Miller, and although none of his other books have matched the success of Blue Like Jazz, each of them have their qualities I admire and learn from.  He has a canny ability to express his thoughts in a way that makes people think, sometimes cry, but most importantly laugh. In his latest project, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, Miller grabs all his wit and humor that has earned him success and runs with it in a new direction. Rather than simply writing down his thoughts on life and religion, Miller brings the reader along on his personal, often painful, journey to a greater understanding of life and the story within it. From his new passion for cycling, his hiking trip along the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, and the kindling – and de-kindling – of a new relationship, it’s his own personal story, about the desire we all have to create our own story, and the need to get off our backsides and start living it.

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years might just be Miller’s best book yet. Not because it has his best writing – it doesn’t – and not because it has his most profound thoughts – it doesn’t – but because it forces the reader to look inward and examine their own story rather than looking outward in agreement. Where Blue Like Jazz allowed me to sit on my couch and nod my head in agreement at how I felt the Christian world should be, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years forced me to look inward and reexamine my own life and what I can do to make sure it’s a story worth living. It’s as if William Wallace himself wrote a book about a comment he made to a French Princess a long, long time ago: Every man dies…not every man really lives (insert your own bad Scottish accent). Every time I hear that phrase in Braveheart I get fired up. A Million Miles in a Thousand Years has the same effect, kind of, but you get my point.

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As a side note, thanks to Thomas Nelson Books for sending me an advanced copy to read and review. They also sent me an extra copy which I’ve decided to randomly give away to one lucky son (or daughter) of a gun. There are two ways to enter to win, leave a comment about your favorite Donald Miller book and why, or post this review on Twitter. Either way gets your name in the “drawing”, doing it both ways means your extra special, but you still only get one chance to win. I’ll email/tweet the winner a week from today. Good luck!