Camille N Johnson | Invite Christ to Author Your Story | Oct 2021 General Conference | Faith To Act

Invite Christ to Author Your Story
By Camille N. Johnson

Primary General President

Let your narrative be one of faith, following your Exemplar, the Savior Jesus Christ.

I begin by posing several questions, meant for self-reflection:

What kind of personal narrative are you writing for your life?

Is the path you describe in your story straight?

Does your story end where it began, at your heavenly home?

Is there an exemplar in your story—and is it the Savior Jesus Christ?

I testify that the Savior is “the author and finisher of our faith.”1 Will you invite Him to be the author and finisher of your story?

He knows the beginning from the end. He was the Creator of heaven and earth. He wants us to return home to Him and our Heavenly Father. He has everything invested in us and wants us to succeed.

What do you suppose keeps us from turning our stories over to Him?

Perhaps this illustration will help your self-assessment.

An effective trial lawyer knows that on cross-examination, you should rarely ask a witness a question to which you do not know the answer. Asking such a question is inviting the witness to tell you—and the judge and jury—something you don’t already know. You might get an answer that surprises you and is contrary to the narrative you have developed for your case.

Although asking a witness a question to which you do not know the answer is generally unwise for a trial lawyer, the opposite is true for us. We can ask questions of our loving Heavenly Father, in the name of our merciful Savior, and the witness who answers our questions is the Holy Ghost, who always testifies of truth.2 Because the Holy Ghost works in perfect unity with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, we know that the manifestations of the Holy Ghost are reliable. Why, then, are we sometimes resistant to asking for this kind of heavenly help, truth manifest to us by the Holy Ghost? Why do we put off asking a question to which we do not know the answer when the witness not only is friendly but will always tell the truth?

Perhaps it is because we don’t have the faith to accept the answer we might receive. Perhaps it is because the natural man or woman in us is resistant to turning things completely over to the Lord and trusting Him entirely. Maybe that is why we choose to stick with the narrative we have written for ourselves, a comfortable version of our story unedited by the Master Author. We don’t want to ask a question and get an answer that doesn’t fit neatly into the story we are writing for ourselves.

Frankly, few of us would probably write into our stories the trials that refine us. But don’t we love the glorious culmination of a story we read when the protagonist overcomes the struggle? Trials are the elements of the plot that make our favorite stories compelling, timeless, faith promoting, and worthy of telling. The beautiful struggles written into our stories are what draw us closer to the Savior and refine us, making us more like Him.

For David to overcome Goliath, the boy had to take on the giant. The comfortable narrative for David would have been a return to tending sheep. But instead he reflected upon his experience saving lambs from a lion and a bear. And building on those heroic feats, he mustered the faith and courage to let God write his story, declaring, “The Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine.”3 With a desire to let God prevail, with an ear to the Holy Ghost and a willingness to let the Savior be the author and finisher of his story, the boy David defeated Goliath and saved his people.

General Conference Sunday Morning Session October 2021

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