Faithful to Their Covenants

I would love to get off this topic, having said as much as I wanted to say yesterday, but since I'm teaching Eternal Marriage tomorrow, I can't afford to avoid the subject. This isn't going to be a fun lesson. In my first reading of the lesson in the manual, I was really just looking for the paragraph about Plan B, since I know there will be at least one person in class who needs to hear that part. While there isn't a paragraph on Plan B in the regular text of the manual, there is a note for the instructor, advising them to be sensitive:

For teachers: All members, whether married or single, need to understand the doctrine of eternal marriage. However, you should be sensitive to the feelings of adults who are not married. As needed, help class members or family members know that all Heavenly Father’s children who are faithful to their covenants in this life will have the opportunity to receive all the blessings of the gospel in the eternities, including the opportunity to have an eternal family.

What I find interesting, and slightly discouraging, about this paragraph is what it says we need to do to qualify for Plan B.  "All Heavenly Father’s children who are faithful to their covenants in this life will have the opportunity to receive all the blessings of the gospel in the eternities." This is upsetting because, with all the covenants we make with God, especially as Latter-Day Saints, it's very difficult, if not impossible, to stay faithful to all of them. We're only human. We all make mistakes, fall short of our ideals, and occasionally prove unfaithful. Does that mean that we, unfaithful humans, don't qualify for the blessings of heaven?

Yes, and no. No, we don't qualify for heavenly blessings, meaning that we're not worthy of them. But I believe, or at least hope, that those who are trying to be righteous will be given the blessings, whether we actually qualify or not. So, even though we can never really earn the blessings God offers us, some of us will receive them, mostly through the grace of God.

I really wonder where I stand sometimes. I know I'm not succeeding as much as I'd like to be. I'm trying, but am I trying hard enough? I'm not sure. Could I be trying harder? Probably. The trouble with the idea of "doing your best" is that we can always theoretically do better than we actually do, even if we try to give it our all. "Doing our best" is something that anyone can do, but still no one can really achieve it. But you know, I bet God takes that into account. Last Conference, President Uchtdorf said: "Our destiny is not determined by the number of times we stumble but by the number of times we rise up, dust ourselves off, and move forward."

Perhaps life was never meant to be a test that we could actually pass. (No, really, hear me out on this. I think I've got something here.) In life, and especially in the Gospel, we're given impossibly high goals and standards to try to keep, and perhaps the test isn't whether or not we manage to keep them, but how much we try to. In life, we face an endless cycle where we try, fall short, and try again. Maybe it's by trying again and again that we reach the actual goal of life, whether we reach ever our Earthly goals or not. In weightlifting, we try to lift weights, but the real goal isn't to get the weight into the air - it's to become stronger, and we become stronger by trying to lift the weight. In keeping the commandments, the goal is to become more Christlike, and we become more Christlike by trying to keep His commandments. Success (at least, success on Earth) may not be essential. What's essential is that we keep trying.

What does that mean for Eternal Marriage? Well, having a Celestial Marriage is a lofty goal. We should strive for it, and whether we attain one in the eternities may depend on how hard we tried to achieve one on Earth (and our general faithfulness at other commandments). Taking someone to the temple in the first place is a loft enough goal for many of us, and making our marriages Celestial ones requires constant effort. We probably won't have perfect marriages in this life, but as long as we're working toward that goal, we may achieve it in the eternities, whether we actually get hitched in this life or not.

Am I going to share any of this in class? Maybe, but probably not. This study was mostly just for my own benefit. But hey, if it's appropriate to the situation, I'll share some of this. But as I said yesterday, it's probably best that I stick to the manual as much as possible.