Over the last few weeks, I’ve been trying to concentrate better as I attend the temple. During my last two visits to the temple as a patron, it has hit me how important it is to focus on the essentials or the basics of the temple covenant.
What Do I Mean by the Essentials?
If you do not know the covenants made in the temple, they can be found in the church handbook. When attending the temple, there’s a lot to take in, especially when you go to get your own endowment. It’s easy to get distracted. Whether it’s the beautiful pictures, the person sitting next to you who is wiggling, or just some wording that’s not entirely clear, while attending the temple, it’s easy to be distracted by things that take your focus away from the essential covenants you are making at the temple. Yet, it hit me lately how important these covenants are and how important it is to know these covenants. I knew this in a general term, but it hit me recently on an individual, personal level how important it is for each of us to understand our temple covenants.
While there are so many great things about the temple, if we attend just to see the beautiful painting, we are missing the point of the ordinance. If we attend to just check it off a list, we are missing the point of the ordinances. We should instead focus on understanding the covenants we are making and come to know what that means for us.
My Experience As a Worker
For the last few weeks, we’ve had more patrons than usual at the temple. It’s a combination of different factors, including the Rexburg Idaho Temple being closed for cleaning. Because of the increase in patrons, people sometimes have to wait a bit longer, and as workers, we are busier.
One day, I was feeling a little impatient, thinking that we needed to get the patrons through the ordinance as quickly as we could so we could move on to the next group. My thought process was that I know the words, promises, and covenants. The patrons I was working with knew these as well. It wouldn’t hurt to rush the ordinance this one time. Then it hit me that the person whose work was being done, only had this one chance. If I rushed the ordinance, I was rushing their experience. They were missing out on a better understanding of the essentials of these covenants. I didn’t want to take that experience from them. That reiterated to me how important the individual is in the temple experience.
Does This Focus on the Essentials Apply to Other Parts of My Life?
While the focus on the essentials is most evident in my mind as it applies to the temple, it definitely applies to other parts of our lives. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was officially restored to the earth almost 200 years ago. I don’t have all the stats, but in that time, thousands of church leaders have given talks. Events relevant to the church have happened in nearly every country of the world. Mistakes have been made by church members, including some leaders. Things have been said that, especially out of context could be taken the wrong way.
As members of the church, it’s easy to dwell on the things we don’t fully understand or to get caught up in an obscure quote by some church leader in a remote part of the world.
Caught Up in an Obscure Rumored Talk
Just this week, I heard two ladies discussing a talk from roughly thirty-five years ago. I don’t know where this talk was given. I doubt they even know if it was a real talk or if it’s just a myth. The details they knew were a bit vague. A Seventy gave a talk somewhere around 1989. Based upon information given in this talk, they were convinced that starting with our current prophet, Russell M. Nelson, prophets are going to live to a really old age from now on. Also according to what they know about this talk, they were able to predict when the Millennium will come.
Rumors of War
As I heard these two ladies talking about this, I remember thinking that it really doesn’t matter. It reminds me of a rumor going around one of my stakes when I was a teenager. According to the rumor, several people knew of boys who had gotten their Patriarchal Blessings. In their blessings, they were supposedly told that they wouldn’t be able to serve missions because they would be drafted into the military when World War III started. Of course, no one actually knew the people with these Patriarchal Blessings, but a friend of a friend or their sister’s neighbor’s son had that message in his blessing. There were people who were really concerned about this. More than 25 years later, World War III has not started.
The Danger of Getting Caught Up in Things That Are Not the Essentials
On the surface, I think it’s pretty easy to see why it’s important to not get caught up in the things that are not the essentials of the gospel. In the examples, people are getting caught up in rumors of something, allowing it to dictate how they feel and possibly how they act. If their focus is on preparing for something that may or may not happen, they may miss out on the essentials of the gospel, things like praying, reading their scriptures, serving others, and attending the temple as often as practical for them. When their focus is on the things that ultimately don’t matter, they can be pulled away from the truth, especially if the thing they thought was going to happen doesn’t happen.
For some people, the thing pulling them away from the essentials of the gospel might not be a rumored talk. Maybe, it will be an outdated church policy or something an early church leader did that wasn’t entirely Christlike. Perhaps, it will be something they read in the scriptures that doesn’t quite make sense or advice they get from their bishop that doesn’t turn out well.
Ultimately, we need to realize that every church leader is human. They are going to make mistakes. Also, there are sadly a lot of rumors in the church. Many of these begin like a childhood game of Telephone. It may have begun with some truth, but it was distorted along the way. We can choose to be distracted by the things that don’t matter or that don’t fully make sense, or we can choose to focus on the essentials of the gospel. One of those is likely to lead to disappointment and discouragement. The other will lead us back to Christ. It’s our choice which we pick.
