Belmont is handing out cash to their students.

In denominations of five, ten and twenty bucks, hundreds of students will be handed packets containing cash and asked to “do something” with the money. The idea is they can’t spend it on themselves, and they have to use it to tell a great story. Each student will consider what to do with the money for a few days, I am sure, and then launch into a creative endeavor to make something great happen with the dollars they have been given. If you want to follow along, you can read some of their stories here.

I get to be part of this campaign as an experiment to have fun with the concepts in A Million Miles. The idea of an inciting incident involves passing through a doorway of no return. With a twenty-dollar bill in hand, and knowing they can’t spend it on themselves, students will start making things happen, bringing stories into the world that would never have taken place if it weren’t for them, and for the inciting incident of being handed a packet containing the inciting incident of a great story.

What creative thing would you do if somebody handed you a twenty and you knew you had a to create a great story with the money?

In real life, the bad guy doesn’t always get killed off, but that doesn’t change the fact we don’t like him. And ultimately, bad guys get what they deserve. They end up alone, or worse, surrounded and yet lonely. They may take advantage of people but the world doesn’t run on money or fame, it runs on love, and when you take advantage of people, you end up without love.

The other problem with real life is it’s hard to tell whether or not you are the bad guy. We all believe we are the good guy or that our words and actions are justified. The other day I lost my temper at a stranger. I really let them have it. I still feel like they deserved it. It was a bully situation in which somebody was being threatened. But I went too far, honestly. I pretty much said things that person will be thinking about for years. I went for the jugular and put him in his place. Or perhaps it went in one ear and out the other, I don’t know. But regardless, I was thinking about that today, and realized that the things I said could be placed word for word into a film in which the character that said it got “what they deserved” at the end and nobody would really care. Stink. Can’t believe I said those things.

The point is, story can teach us something about what we should and shouldn’t say or do. Before you unload on your spouse or kids, ask yourself if a character in a movie treated their wife or husband the way you are about to treat your wife or husband, would they be the good guy or the bad guy? Story can help us step outside ourselves and see a dynamic with more wisdom.

The sad truth is, good guys often get taken advantage of. When I lose my temper, it’s usually because I don’t want to get taken advantage of, I don’t want to be disrespected. I’ve stepped into a game in which people are keeping score, and I’m determined not to lose. But the truth is, there is no game, it’s just a hoax, and the only way to show others there is no game is to lose and show how much it didn’t matter. Perhaps that’s why Jesus asks us to turn the other cheek, to give our shirt to somebody who asks for our coat and so forth. He wants us to show people we aren’t playing their game.

In Million Miles, I talk about structuring your life

“Donald Miller desperately wanted the new Volvo, but he didn’t have enough money. So he got a job at a local grocery store and worked the nightshift till he could afford the down payment….”

Not so exciting. But change those elements around (what the character wants and how much conflict they are willing to endure) and you’ve got the stuff of a great story and a great life.

I didn’t say it in the book, but I actually tried this a couple years ago. My storyline went something like: “Donald Miller wants to write more books and pay lots of unhealthy attention to Amazon reviews…” and my heart sank. I think that was about the time I started The Mentoring Project, and I’ve been happier (and more engaged in my own story) ever since.

So I thought I’d invite you into that little experiment. Maybe you and your friends, or you and your family could write a little storyline. What I mean is, what would it look like to write a two sentence summation of your life plot? 

Now here’s the thing, most people are living a more exciting life than they think they are. Life doesn’t feel as great as a good movie, no matter how good your life is. If you’re raising a family, just trying to make ends meet, that’s great. Only add something more heartfelt to it…

“Joe is trying to make it through the recession, fighting not to associate his self worth with his lack of money, all the while keeping the love alive in his home.”

Have you ever thought of replacing the mission statement at your church or organization with a storyline? It might help everybody involved see things more clearly. And plus, everybody involved would feel like they are part of a story. And being engaged in a story is more exciting than obeying a mission statement.

Here are some tips on a great storyline.

1. State who the character or characters are.

2. State the single primary ambition. Make it clear and defined.

3. Name the conflict, and if you can, state how that conflict will be overcome.

4. Ask a question at the end that pertains to the climax (Will The Mentoring Project be able to shut down fifteen percent of American Prisons?)

The truth is, a person can be part of many stories. I am part of about five major stories in my life right now. And my guess is you are too. You’re church may be telling a group protagonist story, and your family may be telling one too. You may be telling a story solo, also. Regardless, the clearer these elements are, the better each story will be lived out.

What this will do is give you a greater clarity about what you are supposed to do today, this week, this month and this year. You’ll find yourself in the theater of your own mind watching an interesting story unravel. 

Here’s some humorous motivation my friend Susan Isaacs sent to get you started. If you’re in a small group, show this clip and then do this exercise together: (Don’t worry, it’s not a lesbian kiss fest. It’s a funny video, I promise)

P.S. Next week, we will spend all 5 days on the blog working on your catch phrase!

Okay, I haven’t actually done the math. It may be 1 in 250 or 1 in 95, but that is hardly the point. The point is we think God is going to tell us exactly what to do, but chances are, He isn’t. It’s just not a Biblical idea.

God does have a general desire for everybody, for them to be reunited with the Trinity through Christ, and for them to have food and shelter and relationships, but I don’t believe God has mapped out a plan for your every day, or even for your every year.

My friends who disagree and think God has a specific plan for everybody are mostly sitting around waiting to hear from God. Meanwhile, God’s plan for them, apparently, is to shop at Bed Bath and Beyond and quote the latest Saturday Night Live skit. Quite the plan.

I contend with this idea for a number of reasons, but the main reason is that I don’t think God is a control freak.

Imagine visiting a friends house for dinner for the first time. You sit down at the table and the father, who sits at the head of the table, tells each of the kids, and the wife for that matter, what and when to eat. Then he tells them what to wear to bed, when they will be getting up, where they will be going to college and who they will be married to. Later, you tell your friend you thought their dad might be a bit controlling. You secretly believe their family to be dysfunctional. But your friend is offended. They think it’s perfectly normal to want to please their father in everything they do. And they are right, it is appropriate to want to please ones father. The only problem is, their father is NUTS!

God, on the other hand, isn’t nuts.

If God is fathering us, He is helping us discover what is good, right, pure, and worthy to pursue. He teaches us morality and ethics, but also gave us a heart filled with desire and longing. It’s as though God sets before us a big sheet of butcher paper and hands us a box of crayons and tells us to dream.

I’ve a friend whose wife is a counselor who does this very experiment with kids she counsels. She gives them a sheet of paper and some crayons, and based on how they respond, she can tell whether or not the child has a dysfunctional relationship with their parents.

But I could be wrong. Here’s how you know, based on scripture, whether God has a specific plan for your life:

1. If you are a virgin and you get pregnant anyway.

2. If your donkey talks to you.

3. If an angel wants to wrestle.

If any of this happens to you, God is definitely at work. He also wants you to see a counselor.

And there are a few more. You get the point. If God has something specific for you, you’ll know, I promise. But if He is setting a box of crayons down in front of you (a box of crayons called life) then by all means draw. He’s taught you right from wrong, good from bad, beautiful from profane, so draw. He will be with you, proud of you, cheering you on, so draw. He loves you, so draw in the inspiration of the knowledge of His love. Draw a purple horse, a red ocean, a nine-legged dog, it doesn’t matter. Lets stop being so afraid. Lets live, and show the world what it really means to be grateful we don’t live in a dysfunctional family.

Have you ever noticed Calvinists think in black and white?

So I’ve been wondering how much our personality goes into our understanding of God? And I’ve been concluding that, well, it goes into our view of God quite a bit.

For the past several years, I’ve studied the Enneagram, a personality assessment not unlike Myers-Briggs. The theory divides people into nine personalities, each with a wing, so with nine subtypes. And I’ve noticed some of the personalities are predisposed to certain theologies. Personality eight, which struggles with controlling people, leans toward a rules based, black and white theology that allows them to easily decide who is right and wrong, and who to fight, who is with them or against them. If you disagree with them, you are their enemy. But are you their enemy because you are wrong about theology, or because they have subscribed to a theology that helps them feel comfortable within the way they view the world? In other words, is this God’s fight, or their own? If they weren’t Christians, wouldn’t they just manifest their personalities in some other fight, some other black-and-white way of viewing the world?

Then there is the scholarly type, who tends to understand everything from different angles, but has trouble landing or stating they believe in much of anything. They are on a search, looking for truth, and don’t like the idea of having arrived. These people make great Bible Scholars because they try to understand an idea from various angles, and yet they have a very hard time landing, mainly because they feel like when they land, they stop learning.

I’ve noticed those who are perfectionists are drawn to rules oriented faith structures, where they can check religous actions off of to-do lists.

So I’m wondering a couple of things, and I know this may border on controversial…But I am wondering what kinds of personalities are, in general, drawn toward what kinds of theologies. Has anybody ever thought about this?

The temptation will be to “act” like we’ve never thought such things, but haven’t we. I have. I’ve wondered about this quite a bit, actually. Right or wrong, I have.

Have you ever met somebody who has been hurt, wrongfully hurt and is bitter about it?

Years ago I read a book called Country of my Skull, about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa. The TRC was a commission put together by Nelson Mandella to hear cases of crimes against humanity committed under apartheid. Mandella asked Bishop Desmond Tutu to head up the commission.

When asked what sort of people Tutu wanted to serve with him, he answered he wanted victims, people who knew firsthand the atrocities of apartheid, those whose lives had been ripped open, who’d lost families and loved ones. But what he said next would change my life forever. Tutu said he did not just want the victims who had stayed victims, but he wanted victims who had forgiven the guilty, who had the moral character to give of themselves when they had every right to be angry and vindictive. These people, Tutu said, are the most capable to help others heal, because they have the education of empathy, they know what pain feels like, and can guide the bitter into forgiveness and strength, and the guilty into reconciliation. He called these people wounded healers.

At the time I read that book, I was working on my own book about growing up without a father. And at the time, having to mine my own childhood, I was tempted toward bitterness. It was Bishop Tutu’s words that steered me clear of sharp rocks.

When we stay bitter, we don’t grow, and we don’t help the people around us. What God wants to do with our pain is turn it into ministry, into an empathy that will heal others. Some of the darkest seasons in your life may turn into a gift for somebody else. And if we are willing to allow our pain and hardship to be used to help others, our pain is given dignity.

I’m often asked if I could, would I change my life so that my father would have stayed around. That’s a difficult question to answer, honestly. Were it not for the pain in my life, I wouldn’t have started The Mentoring Project, and potentially millions of young men would not be provided a positive male role model. I believe in a God who can take our pain, heal it, and use the empathy to spread light rather than darkness. So in short, I do not wish for anything in my life to have been changed, no matter how hard.

To be sure, there are some dark things that happen in our lives that require the aid of somebody else to help us through them. Sexual abuse is, perhaps, the worst kind of pain. Sexual abuse in your past is best aided by a counselor. But after the process of healing, even the hardest, darkest pains can be transformed to help others.

So my question is, what does God want to do with your pain? Is it a blessing or a curse? My prayer is that it would move from the former to the latter, and you would become a wounded healer.

What pain in your life does God want to use to help others?

Don

To be fair, my friend is a very moral man. And to be even more fair, I am being judgmental, to some degree, not because I am saying he has a false God, (there is nothing judgmental about making an observation) but because I honestly respect him a little less. He seems spiritually and emotionally unhealthy.

The truth is, there is one judge, and God does not look around to your friends to ask their opinions.

We were designed so our identity would be affirmed in a relationship with God. In other words, my feelings of self worth do not come from within me, they come from an external source. That source was supposed to be God. But in the fall of man, that relationship was severed (it had to be as God could not mix or mingle with anything opposing him, not because He is a jerk, but because He actually defines what is good in the first place) and so after the fall, we continue to look for affirmation from an outside source, and that source is each other.

All you have to do is turn on your television to see this. People sing to get others to clap, they act, play sports, spend millions on plastic surgery and so on and so on. We learn from an early age that people will affirm us if we are funny or smart or submissive or controlling. Our entire personality developed because these dynamics are in play.

That said, in Christian circles, the whole game gets confusing. Christians rightly affirm Godliness, theological accuracy, Biblical literacy, morality and zeal. So the Christian learns from an early age that if he has these characteristics, a jury of his peers will affirm him. And as well they should. But the problem comes when the opinion of the jury replaces the redemption we find in God. I once confronted this same friend about a wrong he had committed, and he became intense and angry. To him, I was threatening his very survival, his ace card (morality and righteousness) in the game. If his redemption would have come from Christ, he could see himself more objectively. But instead, he was a slave to the jury of peers.

This morning I was reading in Matthew, going back over the account of the birth of Christ. I just loved how God did not seem to care what religious people thought of Him, or, for that matter, His own children. The scriptures say Mary became pregnant while engaged, but not married to, Joseph. Now this happened because Mary needed to be a virgin, to fulfill prophecy but also that the birth would be a true miracle and an unquestionable seed from God Himself. That said, though, she was, in todays language, a knocked up unwed woman. Even Joseph wanted out of the whole situation. And he wanted out because he was a righteous man, who bowed to a jury of his peers. It took an angel of the Lord to talk Joseph into going through with the wedding.

So my question to you is, are you a slave to a jury of your peers? Do you always have to explain why you are right? How much do you care what religious people think of you? When somebody else is wrong, do you jump in quickly to tell them so, making yourself feel righteous? My answer to these questions is yes, I do. Doesn’t that stink?

This is all a question of motives, I realize. Nobody is condoning sin, or saying to revolt against religious people. That said, I think we would be a bit more emotionally stable to understand self-righteousness gets us nowhere, and the jury of our peers is neither an accurate or authoritative judge. It really is a waste of your time to defend yourself to anybody but God Himself. And it’s even more of a waste of time to claim any defense other than Christ crucified.

Imagine the time and energy we would save if we actually believed this to be true.

What is The Mentoring Project?

The Mentoring Project is a non-profit organization working to create hundreds of thousands of relationships just like the one between Bil and Shawn. We do this by partnering with churches to create a small, localized mentoring program. Churches either run the program independently, or utilize their men’s ministry or college ministry to run a mentoring branch. Right now, we are working with nine churches in Portland, Oregon. When we start a new program, we provide extensive mentor training that involves not just the mentors, but the entire church. The pastor preaches a sermon that launches the initiative, and from there we do extensive training. We partner with Big Brothers and Big Sisters (unless the church wants to use a different program, or simply mentor kids from within their church) to trim down the existing waiting list most cities have for a male mentor. In Portland, there is a 1000 kid waiting list for a Big Brother. We hope to work through that waiting list soon, and work with churches to sustain those relationships, then branch out to other cities until we are a national recruitment and training organization, not reinventing the wheel, but feeding existing and working programs.

We believe the government is large because the church has been too small. We believe fatherless boys are the lead domino affecting a number of social problems including crime, teen drop out rates, unwanted pregnancy and abortion, and eventually divorce rates. We talk openly at our board meetings about the most economically efficient way to shut down as many as 15% of American prisons within a single generation through one-on-one relationships with young, fatherless men. We believe there is only one institution that can turn back the tide on dysfunctional families, and that institution is the church.

Young kids with positive male role models have something to live for, somebody who is proud of them, somebody who cares about their well-being, a mature role model and example, and are much less likely to find trouble.

You can join us in turning the heart of the church to the fatherless generation by supporting a mentor here. We think we can change the world one relationship at a time, and change one kids world today. Thanks for being a role model for all of us, Bil.

You can learn much more about The Mentoring Project here.

(I’ll be traveling this week, so will most likely leave this post up as I won’t be able to create a new one from the road. Would you mind telling your friends about this post? Simply use the Facebook and Twitter icons below to spread the word. Every bit of exposure helps. Thanks so much!)