A Story Worth Writing

Redbox, the little drive up DVD vending machines where you can rent movies for a dollar a night, is doing a sweet promotional where they give you a promotional code every Wednesday this month for a free rental. Since Lost was a repeat last night, I decided to take Redbox up on the free movie and make my wife happy at the same time by renting Australia. I assumed it would be a sappy romance and figured I could earn a few brownie points, but I was pleasantly surprised to find it wasn’t. It’s a good story, a bit long, but we enjoyed it. As I was watching it, I couldn’t help but think about this week’s lesson.

As soon as Nicole Kidman’s character decides to do something and make a stand, opposition arises. She desires to save the cattle ranch where her husband died and restore it to its old glory. Immediately she is told she can’t do it, there’s no one to help her, the job is too tough, etc. Sounds a lot like Nehemiah to me. As long as you go with the flow, things are easy; but the moment you do something unexpected, it begins to get tough. I love how the opposition mounts as the story progresses. First Nehemiah was mocked, but when that didn’t work, he was attacked physically. And that’s where the story gets good.

Think back to any movie or story you know. The conflict is what makes it interesting and exciting, right? Normal people doing normal work quit when it gets difficult. You don’t see movies being written about them, do you? Extraordinary people on extraordinary missions always face opposition, but instead of quitting, they face it head-on. That’s what makes their story worth telling.

So my question for this week is simple but worth thinking about: Is your story worth telling? Is what you’re doing right now in your life worth writing a story about? And by that, I don’t mean you have to be solving world hunger or anything, but what are you doing? Are you standing up, moving forward, or just going along with the flow? Watching movies like Australia makes we want more. I want to be part of a great story and thankfully my Savior allows me to do that. I want to face opposition head-on. There are great stories waiting to be written every day, but we have to be willing to get started. What are you going to do when the plot thickens?