Member Voices
My Journey on the Covenant Path
When I turned 18, the age to go on a full-time mission, my father and I made a financial plan to allow me to save so I could prepare to serve. Essentially, my father entrusted me with management of one of his businesses, with two conditions: I had to secure his investment in the business and use the profits to pay for my mission.
Given the difficult economic conditions due to the political unrest of the time, I was unable to produce as much profit as I had planned. It became difficult for me to secure the investment and bankruptcy started to loom on the horizon.
To create a successful business, it is essential to have a solid financial foundation.
As with any profitable business, solid finances are the basis and foundation for a well-functioning operation. Compared to the elements necessary for business creation, we also need to have a good base or foundation throughout our journey on the covenant path.
What is our foundation?
Referring to my father’s business, we might ask ourselves: what are the basics or foundations of life? Do we have any? If so, what are they based on? On what do we base our lives, our decisions, and our future?
-
Do we base our lives on what can go bankrupt due to economic crises, or political unrest?
-
Or rather do we base our lives only on the number of “likes” we get on social networks?
-
And what about our Church callings?
Does this sum up our lives and what we do?
If we think back to my father’s advice, which was to secure his company, isn’t this comparable to our lives?
In the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ, the prophet Helaman taught his sons what they should base their lives on and why:
“And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall” (Helaman 5:12).
We shouldn’t base our lives on other people’s opinions, what they think, what the media says about us, our popularity rating on social media, or anything that’s trending today. But, in the day of our difficulties, do we secure the investment in us? Jesus Christ, on the other hand, will always be there. He will support us. He will help us make the right choices. As He himself promised in Doctrine and Covenants 50:44, “Wherefore, I am in your midst, and I am the good shepherd, and the stone of Israel. He that buildeth upon this rock shall never fall.”
During my journey on the covenant path, I have learned that the Lord does nothing without revealing His secrets to His servants, the prophets. (See Amos 3:7.) With the blessing of our prophet, in his first message to the Church, President Russell M. Nelson said:
“Your commitment to follow the Savior by making covenants with Him and then keeping those covenants will open the door to every spiritual blessing and privilege available to men, women, and children everywhere. . . .
“The ordinances of the temple and the covenants you make there are the key to strengthening your life, your marriage and family, and your ability to resist the attacks of the adversary. Your worship in the temple and your service there for your ancestors will bless you with increased personal revelation and peace and will fortify your commitment to stay on the covenant path.”1
The temple is the only place where we can strengthen our bases or foundations and be safe during the periods of failure that will shake our lives while on the covenant path.