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Receiving Joy and Strength by Keeping Temple Covenants
Attending the temple alone may sometimes be difficult, but Heavenly Father fills us with His pure love, enduring strength, and everlasting joy as we strive to honor our temple covenants.
Photograph posed by model
As a member of the Church who has not yet married, I have been endowed for over 18 years without a spouse to join me at the temple. For some of us in this situation, along with those who are divorced, widowed, or married but whose spouse does not hold a current temple recommend, it can often be challenging to serve and worship in the temple. We may have increased feelings of being alone because of the messages of eternal marriage and family woven throughout the ordinances. Even though I relate to these feelings of struggle at times, I have come to realize that instead of focusing on whether or not I’ve received all the blessings promised in the temple, I can focus on offering all I can give inside—and outside—the temple to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.
Simeon Reverencing the Christ Child, by Greg K. Olsen
For five years, I was employed as the temple president’s secretary in the Salt Lake Temple. A beautiful painting, “Simeon Reverencing the Christ Child,” hung on the wall near my desk. It depicted Mary and Joseph presenting Jesus in the temple and offering a pair of turtledoves according to the law of Moses, one for a sin offering and another for a burnt offering (see Leviticus 12:6, 8).
Each time I walked by the painting, the birds’ eyes seemed to look right at me, and I felt as if the Lord was using this symbolic image to ask me, “What do you have to offer as you present yourself to Me?”
I often found myself feeling, “I am the offering to be presented to Him.” My whole life—my individual obedience to my covenants with Him—is ultimately my gift and offering, my “holiness to the Lord.”
As the Apostle Paul invited us, we can “present [our] bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service” (Romans 12:1; emphasis added). For me, part of this living sacrifice to God can include my offering to
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keep my promises with Him that I have made through my temple covenants,
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strive to honor and obey the commandments,
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“let God prevail”1 by prioritizing Him in my daily life,
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minister to others in natural and nurturing ways as Christ would do,
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show gratitude for the opportunities Heavenly Father has given me to participate in His work on the earth,
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and be willing to trust the Lord as He guides me into the various paths He has in store for my life.
Whenever we seek and heed revelation, I know Heavenly Father will help us know what offerings to make to Him each day and throughout our lives.
The Lord’s Love and Promises
As I strive to provide a holy offering to God through the way I choose to live, I am fully aware that it is only through my Savior and His infinite sacrifice that this is even possible. For “there shall be no other name given nor any other way nor means whereby salvation can come … , only in and through the name of Christ” (Mosiah 3:17). This foundational knowledge buoys me up with greater strength to increase my personal relationship with Him.
When Christ came to the Americas after His Resurrection, the Nephites went “forth one by one … and did see with their eyes and did feel with their hands, and did know of a surety … that it was he … that should come” (3 Nephi 11:15; emphasis added).
I felt a similar sweet assurance the day I entered the temple to receive my endowment. While I was being escorted into the area for the initiatory ordinance, my heart (as well as the surroundings) was very calm and quiet. Each part of the ordinance reminded me how very individual my salvation is and how Christ’s tender love for us is shown one by one. It motivated me to ponder on the significance of my covenants.
Since that day, I have held fast to the strength I gain from an ongoing desire to keep my promises to Him, and I especially hold to His promises to me in return.
For instance, some specific promised blessings in the initiatory ordinance related to marriage have not yet unfolded for me. I know it can be natural at times to struggle with a limited mortal view, but I completely believe that the Lord sees all things as present before Him now2—even those desires we yearn to receive in the future.
When the Savior speaks, we can trust that He will fulfill His promises, for He is ever trustworthy. And in His omniscient and eternal perspective, His part of the covenant has already been fulfilled.
A favorite scripture of mine reads:
“God is powerful to the fulfilling of all his words.
“For he will fulfil all his promises which he shall make unto you” (Alma 37:16–17; emphasis added).
This profound declaration brings me immense joy and strength to move forward!
Joy to Thrive
Believing and trusting in these promises—even with some being “afar off” (Hebrews 11:13)—can lead us to receive an even greater capacity for joy to thrive in our lives both now and later. Life isn’t void of challenges, no matter our current circumstances. Trials are part of Heavenly Father’s plan of salvation, but so is happiness.
As members who are currently single, we may long for partnership and belonging in this journey of mortality that can sometimes feel like a lone and dreary world. But staying close to Christ can bring us strength and eternal happiness.
Alma reminded us that “the Lord provided for them that they should hunger not, neither should they thirst; yea, and he also gave them strength, that they should suffer no manner of afflictions, save it were swallowed up in the joy of Christ” (Alma 31:38; emphasis added).
I am grateful that as I’ve honored my baptismal and temple covenants in my offering to Him, Christ has provided—and will continue to provide—for my needs, whether spiritual, temporal, or emotional. I have also been filled with “the peace of God, which passeth all understanding” (Philippians 4:7), and which enables me to endure my life’s journey with joy.
As President Russell M. Nelson taught, “We can feel joy regardless of what is happening—or not happening—in our lives. Joy comes from and because of [Jesus Christ]. He is the source of all joy.”3
An Offering of Holiness
Each time I think of the painting of the turtledoves, I am repeatedly reminded to offer myself to Christ through my covenant living. I am especially thankful for the promises He offers me through keeping my temple covenants.
If you have not yet received your own saving ordinances in the temple or have not attended for personal temple worship in a while for any reason, I lovingly invite you to set aside any past or current barriers and make the necessary efforts to enter those hallowed doors. As you do so, you will be able to receive the strength and joy that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ offer us through temple worship and covenants.
I know the temple is a place that can change us—not because of the holy edifice itself but because of whom it represents and how it points us to Jesus Christ. When we enter those hallowed doors, I feel as if we are each filling our lamps with spiritual oil as we prepare for the Savior’s return (see Matthew 25:1–13). Making and keeping our baptismal and temple covenants prepares us to receive all the Father has in store for us.
As we keep our covenants, I trust that our Heavenly Father and our Savior will fill our lives with magnified power to act in faith and with enlightening joy to live the life we have been so generously given by God.