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Relief in Partnering with God
From “Our Covenant Relationship with God: A Wellspring of Relief,” given to students at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, USA, on October 24, 2023.
Each of you has the opportunity to partner with your Heavenly Father and Savior in deep and powerful ways through your covenant relationship.
There is relief in partnering with God. We are never alone.
Each of you has the opportunity to partner with your Heavenly Father and Savior in deep and powerful ways through your covenant relationship. There is such relief in knowing you are never alone in your sorrows, your challenges, your decisions, your insecurities, or your weaknesses. God, the Father of our spirits, loves you. And through His Beloved Son, Jesus Christ, and His atoning sacrifice, all the blessings the Father desires for you are available in this covenant relationship.
When we receive the ordinances and covenants both at baptism and confirmation and in His holy house, we are not done learning about covenants and priesthood power. We are not done learning about the Lord and His ways. We are not done learning about who we really are.
Receiving the ordinances and covenants of the Savior’s gospel is just the beginning. It is not a transactional item on a checklist but the beginning of a beautiful covenant bond. President Russell M. Nelson taught, “The covenant path is all about our relationship with God.” Listen to the prophet’s words as He described this covenant relationship and how God desires to bless you:
“Once we make a covenant with God, we leave neutral ground forever. God will not abandon His relationship with those who have forged such a bond with Him. In fact, all those who have made a covenant with God have access to a special kind of love and mercy. In the Hebrew language, that covenantal love is called hesed (חֶסֶד). …
“Because God has hesed for those who have covenanted with Him, He will love them. He will continue to work with them and offer them opportunities to change. He will forgive them when they repent. And should they stray, He will help them find their way back to Him.
“Once you and I have made a covenant with God, our relationship with Him becomes much closer than before our covenant. Now we are bound together. Because of our covenant with God, He will never tire in His efforts to help us, and we will never exhaust His merciful patience with us. Each of us has a special place in God’s heart. He has high hopes for us.”
Can you feel God’s love for you in these words? As a sister who has not yet married, this loving and merciful covenant relationship with my Father in Heaven and the Savior has a powerful place in my life and has been and is my greatest source of relief and peace. It brings me unspeakable comfort, divine joy, and a deep, abiding assurance that I am loved as His daughter and that I belong to His eternal family. I know that He knows me and understands me completely.
No matter our marital status or background, the Lord desires us to partner with Him in a powerful way—to “be one” (3 Nephi 19:23) with Him “in all [our] doings” (Alma 37:37). We don’t need to navigate this life alone, and we weren’t meant to. We can choose to find relief in partnering with the Lord through our covenants.
In the April 2023 general conference, President Camille N. Johnson said: “Brothers and sisters, I can’t go at it alone, and I don’t need to, and I won’t. Choosing to be bound to my Savior, Jesus Christ, through the covenants I have made with God, ‘I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me’ [Philippians 4:13].”
“Jesus Christ is at the center of [our] covenant[s].” It is only through Him and His sacrifice that we can make covenants with God. All things became possible when the Savior overcame the impossible. He is “a God of miracles,” a God of love (Mormon 9:11; see also verses 11–21). And my love continues to grow for Him each day.
When we feel His love and reciprocate that love by choosing Him each day, the gospel becomes less about checkboxes and more about love and desire. This allows real gospel roots to grow in each of us, bringing us lasting nourishment and joy. This “covenantal love” helps us to endure when duty or checklists just aren’t enough.
All the blessings of Jesus Christ’s merciful Atonement are promised through your covenant relationship with God. Take Him up on His desires to bless you! Invest in that relationship, strive to keep your covenants, seek to repent often, spend time with the Lord, learn of Him, and love Him with all your heart. There is no greater pursuit and nothing more fulfilling or meaningful than to “know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent” (John 17:3).