The Rocket and the Payload

Elder Dale G. Renlund's talk, The Priesthood and the Savior’s Atoning Power, compared the power of the Priesthood to a rocket. He said that a rocket needs to be well maintained to avoid material fatigue, and that a rocket's only real function was to deliver a payload, which Elder Renlund compares to the opportunity to benefit from the power of the Atonement. Thus, the purpose of Priesthood is to make the blessings of the Atonement available to all. This is accomplished through baptism and other essential and saving ordinances, which are performed by those who bear the Priesthood. Without the Atonement, the Priesthood would be pretty much meaningless, basically just a big firecracker. It is only through the power of the Atonement that the Priesthood actually manages to get anything down. We need the Atonement, and He often sends Priesthood holders to make sure other people have access to it.

But just as rockets can fail if they have damaged parts, we, too, can fail to deliver the Savior's atoning power if we have sins that make us unworthy to bear the Priesthood. Thankfully, repentance is available to everyone, even those without access to Priesthood power, allowing both Priesthood holders and other members of the church to repent of their sins and tap into a portion of the Savior's atoning power, paving the way for even greater Priesthood blessings, like Temple ordinances.

I am astonished by the amount of trust God puts in His followers, and I'm awed by the responsibility to live up to that trust. God has given us great power and, with it, the responsibility to remain worthy to exercise it. We all rely on the Atonement, and to gain some of the greatest blessings of the atonement, we need the Priesthood. I'm thankful for the Atonement, and I'm thankful that God has given us the Priesthood as a means by which to access the Atonement.