I wanted God to be the author of my faith, so why wasn’t I receiving the direction I was seeking?
In her talk “Invite Christ to Author Your Story,” Sister Camille N. Johnson points to Hebrews 12:2 to remind us to let Christ guide our lives. She explains, “We can choose to write a comfortable narrative for ourselves. Or we can allow the Master Author and Finisher to write our story with us, letting the role He needs us to play take precedence over other ambitions.”
Like other young adults, I’m currently facing decisions that will have implications for the rest of my life. I sometimes want the Lord to tell me what to do because I trust his plan to be better than mine. This has led to frustration when I felt like God wanted me to make my own choices. Obviously, he knows better than I do, right?
Photo by Caio
While in a fiction editing class for my major, I learned that good narratives tend to be driven by the choices of their characters. Rather than being victims of circumstance, strong characters are agents who make choices, both good and bad. Those choices inevitably lead to problems, but those challenges are eventually overcome. (That’s the rewarding part for the reader.)
Christ, as the perfect author, knows what he is doing when he allows us to use our agency to make choices. He knows that our lives will be beautiful and rewarding because we get to make our own choices. And even when our choices lead to problems—as they inevitably will—he is there to help us overcome them. (That’s the rewarding part for us.)
Mother Eve’s choice in the Garden of Eden was the beginning of the great narrative of all humanity. Jesus Christ’s choice was the climactic turning point. Our choices add to the complexity and beauty of the Lord’s saga—we are his magnum opus.
So, I have learned that just because God is letting me make choices, that doesn’t mean that he has given up on writing my story. It means that he is good at his trade as an author. We can allow Christ to do his greatest work by faithfully and courageously making our own choices.
Read “Invite Christ to Author Your Story” by Sister Camille N. Johnson to learn more about how you can be a coauthor with Christ.
Source: General Conference
—Elizabeth Walker, Latter-day Saint Insights
FEATURE IMAGE BY RON LACH
Find more insights
Is Christ editing or coauthoring your story? Read Emma Jean’s Latter-day Saint Insights article “Jesus Christ: The Coauthor of Our Story” to learn more.
Watch the BYU–Hawaii devotional “Jesus Christ, the Finisher of Our Faith” to learn what lessons BYU–Hawaii President John S. K. Kauwe III takes from Hebrews 12:2.